The changes proposed by the European Commission to the regulation aimed at combating imported deforestation on Tuesday 21 October (see EUROPE 13735/4) have provoked contrasting reactions in the European Parliament.
Large companies will have to apply the regulation from 30 December 2025. Small and micro-enterprises would benefit from a one-year postponement, and large and medium-sized businesses from a six-month “grace period” for checks and gradual compliance.
The Council of the EU and the European Parliament now have two months to come to an agreement so that the regulation can continue to apply until 30 December 2025.
However, the European Commission is working on contingency plans to ensure that economic operators can comply with their obligations, should this proposed revision not be adopted in time by the co-legislators.
By reopening the text, the Commission is taking the risk of confronting it with additional amendments. Several Member States felt that the proposed simplification measures were insufficient and called for a one-year postponement (see EUROPE 13735/4).
The fate of the text in the hands of the EPP. In Parliament, the position of the European People’s Party (EPP) will be decisive, as the conservatives (ECR) and the far right (PfE) are likely to demand more. Christine Schneider MEP (EPP, German) sees the new measures as “a step in the right direction”.
She welcomed the simplification of due diligence obligations for small and micro-enterprises and the possibility for downstream economic operators to refer to the due diligence statement of the first distributor.
The group will give its final opinion after examining “the details of the proposal very carefully”, warned the group’s environment spokesman, Peter Liese (EPP, German). Christine Schneider did, however, make it clear that the group’s objective was to favour the accelerated procedure in Parliament, “so that businesses can obtain legal certainty and practical simplifications as quickly as possible”.
Christine Schneider had campaigned for the introduction of a fourth category of ‘zero-risk’ countries to be added to the ‘low’, ‘standard’ and ‘high’ risk categories. The absence of this fourth category in the Commission’s proposal is a relief for S&D, as it “would have exempted entire countries or regions from the regulation”.
A compromise to avoid the worst, according to S&D and Renew Europe. According to Delara Burkhardt (S&D, German), “an acceptable compromise has been found” by reducing the administrative burden while maintaining the central element of traceability of goods back to their production plot.
Like her, Pascal Canfin (Renew Europe, French) is also calling on the EPP to support this compromise and warns that he will not accept “any changes that go further”. Reassured that the implementation timetable will remain unchanged for the largest companies, the MEP fears that the reduction in requirements for small and micro-enterprises will lead to a “higher risk of fraud than before”.
According to Marie Toussaint (Greens/EFA, French), the European Commission could have contented itself with “publishing technical guidelines to temporarily get around the IT difficulties”. In proposing a new text, the Commission is, in her view, caving in “to pressure from the Right and the agri-business lobbies”. (Original version in French by Florent Servia)