MEPs vote to give companies more time to comply with deforestation law
Parliament descended into pandemonium during Thursday’s vote on watering down EU Deforestation Regulation
European Parliament threw its weight behind plans to delay the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) in a chaotic vote yesterday.
Technical issues took out a number of MEPs’ voting machines, meaning their views were not included in the final tally.
But it was a clear result: 371 members backed the European Commission’s proposal to postpone the rules by a year, meaning large entities have until 2025 to comply, and smaller ones until June 2026.
240 MEPs voted against the proposal, with 30 abstentions.
The Commission made the suggestion in September in response to push-back from companies and Member States about the practicality of complying with EUDR by the original deadline of December 2024.
The law, agreed last year, is intended to ensure that products sold in Europe are not sourced from deforested land anywhere in the world, by requiring companies trading in key commodities to conduct thorough due diligence on their value chains.
“This additional time would help operators around the world to implement the rules smoothly from the start without undermining the objectives of the law,” Parliament said in a statement.
MEPs also voted to introduce a way to exempt goods from countries that are not considered at risk of deforestation – a label which is expected to be applied to almost all EU Member States.
Businesses sourcing from ‘no-risk’ countries would be off-the-hook for most of the EUDR’s due diligence requirements, and would just have to be able to provide basic information upon request.
The decision is controversial, and likely to inflame tensions with countries outside the EU with goods covered by the European rules.
Forest-heavy members of the World Trade Organisation, such as New Zealand and Brazil, have previously opposed the regulation, saying deforestation should be addressed through global discussions involving key markets.
The exemption may be wider-reaching that originally though, however.
Speaking on LinkedIn, Alex Wijeratna, a senior director at NGO Mighty Earth, said “a quick scan” of data from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation suggested products from Sweden and Portugal would still be covered by the rules, while those from China, the US, Australia, India, and Viet Nam would be excluded.
The other risk categories, which were already agreed and will be further defined by the Commission over coming months, are “low”, “standard” and “high”.
It’s not entirely clear how the file will move forward, but – unless the vote is retaken to deal with the fact not all MEPs were able to participate – it will start by going back to trialogue, meaning Parliament will renegotiate the law with the Commission and European Council based on their shared support for delays.
Observers believe a new agreement will have to be made before the original December 30th deadline for compliance, in order to override it in time.