.jpg)
Palm trees are an important raw material for biofuels. (Photo: iStock)
The European Commission has proposed pushing back the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) for another year, to December 2026, citing concerns that its IT system is not yet ready to handle the demands that the regulation would place on it.
In a letter to the European Parliament, Jessika Roswall, the European commissioner for environment, water resilience and a competitive circular economy, said the inadequate IT system would prevent operators from registering and filing required paperwork.
“This would severely impact the achievement of the objectives of EUDR, but also potentially affect trade flows in the areas covered by the legislation,” Roswall said in the letter.
Critics say that explanation rings hollow. “The IT system is important for implementation, but it is frustrating to see it named as the reason for a delay in the law when it was launched for live testing over nine months ago,” Fyfe Strachan, the policy and communications lead with Earthsight, an environmental nonprofit, told Mongabay in an email.
Once implemented, the landmark anti-deforestation regulation will require producers of commodities often associated with deforestation — including soy, cattle, cocoa, wood, coffee, palm oil and rubber — to prove their products were not produced on land deforested after Dec. 31, 2020. The rule will apply to EU imports and exports.
The regulation was originally slated to take effect in December 2024. It was postponed a year to December 2025 amid pushback from companies and producers saying they were unprepared for the new regulations.
The latest postponement was announced Sept. 23, the same day the EU wrapped up a trade agreement with Indonesia, the world’s top producer of palm oil. Asked about that timing at a press briefing, Roswall said, “It’s not at all linked.” Adding, “We need to keep fighting deforestation, it’s really important for the world and for the European Union.”
Both Indonesia and the EU agreed to remove import taxes on roughly 90% of products, as they seek to expand trade partnerships to offset U.S. tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump.
The EUDR has received criticism from conservationists who fear it could sideline small farmers and inadvertently push production to other sensitive ecosystems, including wetlands or Brazil’s Cerrado savanna.
Christine Schneider of the center-right European People’s Party’s (EPP) said the repeated delays show the laws can’t be fixed with “further transitional periods or non-binding guidelines.” She intends to again push for a “zero-risk” category to exempt certain countries altogether from EUDR regulation.
Earthsight’s director Sam Lawson said the delay effectively “rewards those who have sat on their hands, while punishing the thousands of large and small businesses which have invested time and money in preparing for the law.”
“We urge the European Parliament and Council to reject the Commission’s proposal and implement the law by the end of December as planned,” Lawson said.
Author: Bobby Bascomb
This article was originally published on Mongabay under the Creative Commons BY NC ND licence. Read the original article.
Read more: Balancing decarbonization and economic growth: Indonesia’s B50 biofuel policy
.jpg)
