The European Commission is considering postponing the implementation of the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) by a year. The regulation aims to prevent products linked to deforestation from entering or leaving EU markets, but concerns have arisen over the current IT systems’ ability to handle the data requirements.
This proposal marks another setback for the EUDR, following a previous delay agreed upon by the European Council and Parliament, which postponed the law’s effect for large companies to the end of this year and for smaller enterprises to June 2026.
Introduced in November 2021, the EUDR seeks to ban deforestation-linked products from the EU market and impose strict compliance requirements on companies dealing with commodities like palm oil, beef, timber, coffee, cocoa, rubber, and soy, as well as their derivatives.
Under the regulation, companies must adhere to due diligence rules, tracing products back to the production land to ensure no deforestation occurred post-2020 and compliance with local laws. Last year’s delay followed concerns about global preparedness and uneven readiness among EU stakeholders.
The regulation faced further challenges when Parliament members rejected its country risk benchmarking system, advocating for a “no risk” category to exempt certain countries from the law’s requirements.
The new delay proposal was communicated in a letter from EU Commissioner Jessika Roswall to MEP Antonio Decaro, Chair of Parliament’s ENVI Committee. Roswall highlighted the need for a robust IT system capable of managing transactions for products affected by the EUDR. Current projections indicate the system may struggle with the anticipated load, potentially causing significant disruptions.
Roswall expressed concerns that implementing the EUDR with existing systems could slow down operations and affect trade flows, undermining the regulation’s objectives. Acknowledging the EUDR’s importance in combating global deforestation, Roswall suggested a one-year delay to address these issues and prevent operational challenges for EU and third-country stakeholders.
