MEPs on the European Parliament’s Environment Committee voted (49 in favour, 37 against) in favour of an objection by Alexander Bernhuber (EPP, Austrian) to the Implementing Regulation under the ‘Deforestation-free Products’ Regulation (see EUROPE 13549/34), while rejecting (15 in favour, 70 against, one abstention) the objection tabled by Mathilde Androuët (PfE) on Tuesday 24 June.
Alexander Bernhuber’s objection calls on the Commission to withdraw its Implementing Regulation, which was unanimously supported by the Member States on 2 May, adopted on 22 May and entered into force on 26 May. In particular, the Implementing Regulation enables Member States to know the minimum number of verifications for products derived from deforestation in these countries.
The two objections called for a revision of the list of countries classified as at risk of deforestation, based on updated data - the FAO data used dates from 2020 - as well as the creation of a category of ‘zero risk’ countries, as had already been requested at the end of 2024, given that the EU Member States do not, in their view, represent a risk of deforestation. They also argued that the obligations place an administrative burden on stakeholders.
The particularity of Mathilde Androuët’s objection was to call for “Brazil, Argentina, Indonesia, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Paraguay, Vietnam and Malaysia to be included in the list of countries at high risk of deforestation, before or during the review scheduled for 2026”, with the MEP pointing to the “manifest inadequacy (...) of these countries’ environmental policies” during the debate in the Environment Committee.
Gregory Allione (Renew Europe, French) pointed out that the next FAO data would be “available within four months, just four months”. He also pointed to the “rather surprising alliance” between the EPP and PfE. A few minutes earlier, César Luena (S&D, Spanish) reminded the Chamber that this “reactionary EPP/Patriots link” had already manifested itself a few days earlier with the request to withdraw the Green Claims Directive (see EUROPE 13665/11).
Pär Holmgren (Greens/EFA, Swedish) pointed out the hypocrisy of the two EPP and PfE MEPs “criticising outdated data while fighting tooth and nail against the forest monitoring framework”. His colleague Marie Toussaint (Greens/EFA, French) said that this objection represented “a waste of time in the vital and urgent fight against deforestation”, given that “every hour that passes, forest the size of hundreds of football pitches are decimated”.
The European Commission pointed out that it had been decided to publish the list of country categories at least six months before the regulation came into force (scheduled for the end of 2025) in order to provide “greater legal certainty and predictability for businesses”.
With this in mind, the Renew Europe, S&D, Greens/EFA and The Left groups expressed their “commitment to the rapid and effective implementation of the regulation” in a letter sent on Tuesday to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the European Commissioner for the Environment, Jessika Roswall.
On the other hand, the same groups called for an “urgent” change in the classification of countries, “in order to accurately and effectively reflect deforestation and forest degradation hotspots around the world in the ‘high-risk’ category”.
To see Alexander Bernhuber’s objection: https://aeur.eu/f/hjr
To see the S&D letter to the Commission: https://aeur.eu/f/hjs (Original version in French by Florent Servia)