European Commission under pressure to rethink EU deforestation regulation
Vote in Parliament comes as ministers call for EUDR to be added to simplification package
MEPs have asked the European Commission to rethink part of the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), in the same week ministers called for the law to be added to the bloc’s simplification agenda.
European Parliament today voted in favour of a motion challenging the EU’s list of deforestation-prone countries, which underpins EUDR.
The list indicates the level of due diligence and disclosure expected on imports covered by the law, by labelling exporting nations as either low-, standard- or high-risk, based on their exposure to deforestation and forest degradation.
In the current benchmarking, only Russia, Belarus, Myanmar and North Korea are flagged as “high risk”. All EU Member States sit in the low-risk category.
The list was finalised in May, and Parliament doesn’t have the power to veto it. Instead, today’s motion is an attempt to pressure the Commission to revisit it.
Led by the centre-right European People’s Party, the Parliament’s objection is based on concerns over the way the classification system is designed, and the quality of the data it relies on.
The motion also calls for the addition of an ‘insignificant or negligible risk’ category.
Importantly, that category isn’t specified in EUDR’s underlying legal text, so the Commission would need to re-open the law in order to meet Parliament’s demands.
That would present an opportunity to make further revisions at Level 1, and would almost certainly cause significant delays to implementation.
EUDR law was originally scheduled to come into force last December, but was pushed back at the last minute – partly to allow for the publication of the classification system – and will now apply from December 2025.
The Commission will update its list in 2026, with a view to improving its data.
On Monday, ministers from 18 countries including Italy, Austria, Finland, and Sweden urged the Commission to add EUDR to its simplification agenda.
In a letter, the group of mainly agricultural ministers said the law’s requirements “are disproportionate to the objective of the regulation” and put burdens on businesses who don’t contribute to deforestation.
They suggested it was “appropriate to further postpone the date of application” of EUDR, while changes are considered.
The Commission is free to ignore both the request from Member States and the motion from MEPs.
However, president Ursula von der Leyen faces a vote of no confidence in Parliament tomorrow, and is more broadly under pressure to demonstrate her commitment to making EU regulation more business friendly.
“The Commission must now stay the course and implement the EUDR, not be distracted by this political posturing,” said Anke Schulmeister-Oldenhove, a specialist in EU forestry policy at WWF.
“Any backtracking now, under pressure from narrow political interests, risks eroding that legacy before implementation even begins.”