{"id":245777,"date":"2025-11-05T18:27:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T18:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/245777\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T18:27:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T18:27:10","slug":"deforestation-rules-divide-eu-institutions-as-delay-gains-ground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/245777\/","title":{"rendered":"Deforestation rules divide EU institutions as delay gains ground"},"content":{"rendered":"

The EU\u2019s deforestation regulation (EUDR) is facing another hurdle this week, as mounting political pressure points toward a one-year delay across the board.<\/p>\n

The Council has yet to agree on a common position regarding the Commission\u2019s recent proposal to tweak the regulation \u2013 but all signs suggest ministers are preparing to ask for more time.<\/p>\n

Austria\u2019s push<\/a> to \u201cstop the clock\u201d on EUDR implementation has gained traction, securing the backing of 15 countries at Wednesday morning\u2019s Environment Council \u2013 including Italy and Poland.<\/p>\n

Spain stood alone in voicing clear support for the current timeline, while the Netherlands said it was still assessing how potential changes could affect businesses that have already invested heavily in compliance.<\/p>\n

Clock ticking<\/p>\n

Amid a tight deadline \u2013 an agreement needs to be reached by mid-December \u2013 and with capitals still digesting the Commission\u2019s technical changes, a delay looks increasingly inevitable.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the European Parliament is speeding things up.<\/p>\n

Coordinators in the environment committee (ENVI) voted on Tuesday to apply the urgency procedure to fast-track the proposed amendments.<\/p>\n

The plenary will confirm the decision next week, with a final vote on the text expected during the week of 24 November. ENVI MEPs are also seeking to summon Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall to defend her proposal before the committee next week.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s on the table?<\/p>\n

Exactly how the EUDR might be amended remains unclear. In addition to a blanket one-year delay \u2013 not only for small companies, as originally proposed<\/a>, but for all operators \u2013 deeper revisions could be postponed to a later stage.<\/p>\n

Some member states are also reviving the idea of designating certain countries as \u201czero-risk\u201d for deforestation \u2013 a concept first floated<\/a> by the centre-right EPP last year but shot down by both the Commission and Council at the time.<\/p>\n

Roswall, however, is not on board. She said the creation of such a category would be lengthy and divisive. \u201cI am not even sure how many countries could realistically qualify as having zero risk of deforestation \u2026 including inside the EU,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

In Parliament, Renew Europe and the Socialists back the Commission\u2019s proposal as it stands, while the EPP vowed to reintroduce the new risk category.<\/p>\n

Industry frustrations<\/p>\n

The food industry\u2019s major players do not appear in step with the Council\u2019s demands. While a longer period of implementation period could be welcomed, many stress that efforts and investments to meet the rules have already been made.<\/p>\n

Francesco Tramontin, vice president for global public affairs at Ferrero, said at an event hosted by Renew MEP Pascal Canfin on Wednesday that a further delay would \u201creward the laggards\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cTraceability is non-negotiable in our sector \u2026 don\u2019t believe anyone who tells you it\u2019s not possible,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Far from demanding new \u201crisk\u201d categories, big food companies are more focused on legislators getting technicalities right \u2013 including those newly proposed by the Commission.<\/p>\n

The European Cocoa Association warned at the event that the bloc executive\u2019s revised text contains \u201cserious flaws,\u201d including wording on a six-month grace period that could make compliance checks retroactive.<\/p>\n

The group also flagged that a supposed \u201csimplification\u201d for downstream operators \u2013 allowing the reuse of reference numbers from initial due diligence statements \u2013 could actually make things worse, with thousands of numbers being passed along for a single chocolate bar.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are eight weeks from the beginning of the year, and we don\u2019t know what to hope for,\u201d said Markus Pfannkuch, co-CEO of Precious Woods.<\/p>\n

(aw, adm)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The EU\u2019s deforestation regulation (EUDR) is facing another hurdle this week, as mounting political pressure points toward a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-245777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}