The European Parliament adopted the objection to the implementing act on the ‘Deforestation-free products’ Regulation by 373 votes to 289, with 26 abstentions, in a plenary session vote on Wednesday 9 July.
The objection was tabled by Alexander Bernhuber (EPP, Austrian) and supported by the far right during the vote in the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment held on Tuesday 24 June (see EUROPE 13666/18).
The EPP is calling for a ‘zero-risk’ country category to be added to the ‘low-risk’, ‘standard’ and ‘high-risk’ categories (see EUROPE 13646/7), claiming that “in certain countries or regions, the risk of deforestation or forest degradation is effectively negligible”. EU Member States should therefore be included in this fourth category, according to the EPP. “Granular monitoring specific to each region rather than static national risk classifications” is also suggested.
By adopting the EPP’s objection, Parliament is asking the European Commission to revise the country reference system, but is also calling for the repeal of the implementing regulation.
According to the NGO Fern, “this latest attempt to sabotage the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) is blatantly irresponsible”, as this vote undermines the predictability that businesses need and penalises companies and countries that have already prepared for the implementation of the regulation. “At a time when global deforestation is reaching record levels, the EU’s political will to tackle it is collapsing”.
On Monday 7 July (see EUROPE 13675/9) and Tuesday 8 July (see EUROPE 13676/34), 18 EU Member States and 16 EU farming organisations called on the Commission to simplify the ‘Deforestation-free’ Regulation. (Original version in French by Florent Servia)