Some of Europe’s best-loved independent bookshops – the kind with creaking floors and handwritten recommendations – found themselves in an unusual role this month: lobbying Brussels. Their target was the EU’s deforestation regulation (EUDR), and the plot has now swung in their favour after lawmakers struck a deal on Thursday.
Alongside a one-year delay and tweaks for downstream operators, the Council ultimately accepted Parliament’s demand to exclude books, magazines and other printed products from the regulation altogether, while other wood-derived products like paper will still have to comply.
“The book sector pushed very much and asked for this because, in how a book is made, it is not normally from one kind of paper,” Christine Schneider told Euractiv in a phone call hours before the trilogue.
“Our university libraries could have had a problem in the future,” she added.
Bookshops to the rescue
What made this amendment stand out was the messenger. Rather than industry giants, it was iconic shops like Paris’ Shakespeare and Co. that emailed MEPs directly.
“The implications of the regulation on books and the press, and on all the actors who make up the production chain, have never been the subject of an impact assessment … even though our sectors bear major cultural and democratic stakes,” wrote in an email seen by Euractiv the directors of the Parisian bookshop.
Their note was identical to other messages sent to MEPs by small local bookshops across Europe in recent weeks.
All broadly aligned with the message of major trade associations, including the European and International Booksellers Federation, the European Newspaper Publishers’ Association and News Media Europe.
“Millions of books risk destruction simply because their import would be blocked,” they said in a statement.
The push did not originate with the lead negotiator, Schneider (EPP), an environment lawmaker, but with a late intervention from MEPs on the Parliament’s culture committee (CULT). Though the final agreement was backed across groups, the amendment’s strongest advocate was CULT’s EPP member Sabine Verheyen.
Threat to ‘democratic discourse’
In an email to colleagues seen by Euractiv, she repeated the warnings from booksellers and media groups, again raising the prospect of books being destroyed if the rules took effect.
She also cast doubt on the “long-term damage to media pluralism, cultural diversity and democratic discourse,” and argued that EUDR could jeopardise academic freedom and Europe’s standing as a “centre of scientific excellence.”
But the decision has raised eyebrows elsewhere.
Paper producers and NGOs say the exemption weakens the regulation and may have unintended consequences. Jori Ringman, director general of the paper industry association CEPI, warned the change could heighten Europe’s reliance on imports for books, media and cultural content – “for instance from China.”
WWF, meanwhile, notes the EU had already considered extending the older Timber Regulation (EUTR) to include books, a revision that never happened and ultimately led to their inclusion in EUDR.
The NGO now warns that the carve-out could open the door to further industry-specific exclusions in future reviews.
“There are other things, like the leather and soap industries, that we have to look very carefully: does this proposal now still create problems?” Schneider said on Thursday.
Even in Brussels, not every chapter ends neatly – but for Europe’s booksellers, this one closes on a note of relief.
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