The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) could see another postponement amid European Commission's concerns of unsufficient IT system architecture and performance.
The European Commision has proposed to delay the implementation of the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) by another twelve months to the end of next year. At the latest meeting of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council on 23 September in Brussels, Jessika Roswall, Swedish Commissioner responsible for environment, water resilience and a competitive circular economy, declared that the Commission will seek a postponement of the entry into application of the EUDR, that is foreseen for 30 December 2025, for one year.
The Commission has concerns regarding the capacities of the IT system given the amount of information that were to be put into the system and believes that, despite all efforts for simplification, the implementation of the regulation will not get without disruption for businesses and supply chains, Commissioner Roswall said.
She confirmed that she had sent letters to the Council and the European Parliament inviting the co-legislators to discuss the possible postponement of the EUDR by one year.
At the same time, Commissioner Roswall denied that the postponement had anything to do with the complaints from the US government that were also mentioned in the US EU trade deal or that it was anyway linked to the trade deal recently signed with Indonesia.
EUDR was designed to limit imports and trade of products such as wood, pulp, paper, cocoa, soy, palm oil, coffee, rubber and some of their derived products that were eventually linked to deforestation and forest degradation. The regulation same into force in late June 2023 and was originally meant to be be applied from 30 December 2024, but was already postponed by one year to the end of 2025.
