The European Commission Monday declined to recommend any further changes to the legal text of a forthcoming deforestation rule, although it will narrow the scope to exclude leather products. The U.S. timber industry is lamenting a missed opportunity to address its concerns.
The European Union formally adopted a rule to tackle deforestation in EU supply chains in 2023. It would require importers to take steps to ensure products do not come from deforested land. But its implementation has been delayed several times, and now it's not scheduled to go into effect until at least the end of the year.
U.S. agricultural industries, which would be subject to new reporting requirements, have complained that the measures will incur additional costs and run roughshod over Indigenous rights for minimal advances in curbing deforestation, given the U.S. is not at high risk of deforestation for agriculture.
In December, the European Parliament and Council approved measures to delay implementation again. Large importers now have to comply from the end of the year, while smaller operators have until mid-2027. As part of those measures, the bodies also directed the European Commission to examine further ways to simplify the rule and reduce the administrative burden.
On Monday, the European Commission published the results of a study into whether the rule needs further simplification.
“[T]he Commission does not consider it appropriate to propose further amendments to the basic legal text,” the report concluded.
The Commission used the report to propose narrowing the scope to exclude some products, like leather and retreaded tires, from the rule. But it also recommended adding other downstream products, including soluble coffee and palm oil derivatives.
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The Commission argued that further changes to the rules would risk injecting further uncertainty into commodity markets. The decision not to recommend further adjustments, the report says, was “to preserve legal certainty and ensure a stable and predictable regulatory framework for economic operators” while “taking into account the progress made in reducing compliance costs.”
The report lands at a time when transatlantic trade ties are at risk of fraying once again. On Friday, President Donald Trump accused the EU of failing to live up to a bilateral trade pact signed in Turnberry, Scotland, last year. Accordingly, he said that the U.S. would soon increase the tariffs on European cars and trucks from 15% to 25%.
Speaking on CNBC on Monday, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer noted that Europe had agreed to tariff reductions and regulatory changes as part of the deal, but neither have gone into effect yet.
“They haven’t done any of that,” Greer said.
The European Parliament approved the trade deal in March as part of its legislative process, but with additional guardrails. The member states still have to sign off on the changes before the deal takes effect, however.
“They have a bunch of amendments attached to it that would limit U.S. exports and limit the deal,” he added. At a certain point, he said, “the president decided that if the Europeans aren’t implementing the deal right now, then we don’t have to implement all of it either at this time.”
As part of that deal, the EU committed “to work to address the concerns of U.S. producers and exporters” over its deforestation rule. As a result, some U.S. industry representatives were hoping the Commission would use the report to recommend fixes for U.S. industry.
A timber industry representative told Agri-Pulse that they were disappointed that the Commission concluded that previous efforts to simplify the rule are sufficient.
“They have not provided relief to anyone but themselves,” the industry representative said in an email. “There is no simplification for anyone from low-risk countries outside the EU. The global supply chain is completely integrated, and they are just pretending that is not reality.”
The National Alliance of Forest Owners, which represents private working forest owners in the U.S., called on the Commission Monday to delay the rule's enforcement for countries at low risk of deforestation and further simplify the proposal, particularly as it relates to data sharing and geolocation requirements.
"NAFO shares the EU’s commitment to combating global deforestation and promoting sustainable forest products," the group wrote in a statement. But it added that the European Union needs to ensure the regulation "achieves its environmental objectives without sidelining the sustainable producers and low-risk supply chains that help deliver the very outcomes EUDR is intended to promote."
The World Wildlife Fund, which has endorsed the Commission’s deforestation rules, celebrated its report on Monday, arguing that the political conversation can now turn to “practical implementation.”
“What we need now is decisive implementation, clear enforcement, and the political will to stand by the commitments already made. Only then will the [deforestation rule] deliver the real protection our forests urgently need,” Anke Schulmeister‑Oldenhove, manager of forests at the WWF European policy office, said in a statement.
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