Opposition to the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) coming into force at the end of 2025 continues among EU Member States.
In a miscellaneous item tabled ahead of the Environment Council meeting on Tuesday 4 November, Austria called for the regulation’s one-year suspension for all operators, and for a review of risk-based country categorisation, “with exemptions for insignificant-risk areas”.
With a view to preventing possible overloads of the IT system used for due diligence declarations, the European Commission proposed on 21 October to postpone the regulation’s entry into force until 30 December 2026 for micro and small companies (see EUROPE 13735/4). A six-month “grace period” would be granted for inspections and for the gradual compliance of medium-sized and large businesses in 2025.
The European Commission has also proposed reducing the amount of data uploaded to the IT system by exempting downstream operators in the value chains from declaration.
A number of Member States considered these reductions insufficient, and on 21 October, at the previous Environment Council, they called for a complete postponement of the regulation’s entry into force. A week later, on Wednesday 29 October, at a Committee of Permanent Representatives to the EU (Coreper) meeting, a majority of Member States agreed: the EUDR cannot come into force as planned, in its current form (see EUROPE 13741/1).
On Friday 31 October, Austria insisted on this, with its request under ‘miscellaneous’ items. In addition to suspending application for one year and calling for a category of countries with ‘insignificant risk of deforestation’ to be created, the Member State is calling for further simplification measures, including de minimis thresholds, recognition of existing systems and minimum reporting requirements “along the value chain”.
The EU Council and the European Parliament now have two months to agree on the way forward (see EUROPE 13736/18). The European Commission is working on contingency plans to enable economic operators to comply with their obligations, should the co-legislators fail to reach agreement in time.
See the request: https://aeur.eu/f/j9p (Original version in French by Florent Servia)