The EU Council agreed Wednesday to give companies an extra year to comply with EU deforestation obligations that will ensure products sold in the EU are not sourced from deforested land.
The postponement gives third countries, member states, operators and traders extra time for due diligence obligations, which is to ensure that certain commodities and products sold in the EU or exported from the EU are deforestation-free. This includes products made from cattle, wood, cocoa, soy, palm oil, coffee, rubber, and some of their derived products.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that 420 million hectares of forest — an area larger than the EU — were lost to deforestation between 1990 and 2020. EU consumption represents around 10% of global deforestation. Palm oil and soya account for more than two-thirds of this.
The deforestation regulation aims to fight climate change and biodiversity loss by preventing the deforestation related to EU consumption of products from cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm-oil, soya, wood, rubber, charcoal and printed paper.
Provisions of the deforestation regulation – in force since June 2023 – are supposed to be applied from 30 December 2024. The postponement delays the application date of the regulation by one year.
Large operators and traders would have to respect the obligations stemming from this regulation as of 30 December 2025, whereas micro- and small enterprises would have until 30 June 2026.
The changes have been condemned by environmental groups. The European Environmental Bureau says: “By watering down the law and introducing a “no risk” category for certain countries, the EPP has effectively given the green light to further forest destruction, undermining our global forests, the climate, responsible businesses, citizens, and trust in EU decision-making.”
