Once again, the EU has been asked to postpone implementing Regulation 2023/1115 on imported deforestation. After the World Trade Organization (see EUROPE 13417/6), the EPP (see EUROPE 13441/20), and Eurocommerce (see EUROPE 13461/6), the Southern Agricultural Council (CAS) has, in turn, expressed its alarm as 30 December, the date that the regulation enters into force, continues to quickly approach.
On 29 July, agriculture ministers from CAS member countries sent a letter, seen by Agence Europe, to Maroš Šefčovič, the European Commission vice-president in charge of the European Green Deal; in it, they criticise the EU for taking a “unilateral decision that does not take third countries’ national legislation or local realities into account”.
Argentina’s Sergio Iraeta, president pro tempore of the CAS, writes in the letter—signed by the agriculture ministers of Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay—that the “requirements” set out in the regulation against imported deforestation are “an obstacle to accessing the European market”. Sergio Iraeta condemns the “lack of clarity that remains in the complex process of implementing” the text.
It should be borne in mind that the regulation would prohibit—starting in 2025—products (palm oil, beef, soya, coffee, etc.) whose production has contributed to forest degradation after December 2020 from being imported into the EU. As of 30 December, importers will have to prove that their products do not contribute to deforestation or forest degradation.
Read the letter (in Spanish): https://aeur.eu/f/d7t (Original version in French by Florent Servia)