The EU’s environment commissioner Jessika Roswall has announced her intention to postpone the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) by another 12 months due to IT capacity concerns.
The law had originally been set to come into force on 30 December 2024 for large companies and 30 June 2025 for smaller enterprises. An initial delay was announced in October 2024 after pushback from “international partners about their state of preparations”.
The suggestion to delay again follows further concerns expressed from several countries, including the US, Poland and Austria, alongside a call to delay from Cadbury’s producer Mondelēz in June which pointed to soaring cocoa prices, declining production and limited digital readiness in origin countries.
European Commission blames IT issues
Speaking during a media briefing, EU Commission, deputy chief spokesperson, Olaf Gill, answered several questions following Roswall’s reveal.
“The Commission has worked very hard over the past year with stakeholders in the EU and beyond to make sure that the EUDR can be applied as of next year in a simple and workable way,” he said.
“While our simplification efforts have been substantial, we have concluded that we cannot meet the original deadline with corruptions to our businesses and supply chains. In particular, we have serious capacity concerns regarding the IT system, given the projected load.
“The Commission will therefore seek a postponement of EUDR by one year in order to avoid uncertainty for authorities and to avoid operational difficulties for companies. This will allow us to remedy the identified risks, including the design of the IT system in terms of the necessary capacity.”
With talks on-going with Mercosur and today seeing the EU and Indonesia conclude its trade talks – where a lot of products fall into scope of EUDR – one reporter queried whether a delay to the law could give the opportunity for certain parties to swoop in and weaken the EUDR proposals.
“The trade and sustainable development chapters are strong and, therefore, there should be no fear on any side that there will be slippage as regards to sustainability, climate and environmental commitments,” Gill responded.
The move follows just two weeks after almost 200,000 people urged the Commission to keep EU nature laws (including the EUDR) strong, in a campaign led by BirdLife Europe, ClientEarth, the European Environmental Bureau, and WWF EU.
Industry reaction
EPP: ‘Clearly shows problems’
The European People’s Party Group, which has been vocal about its concerns over EUDR and called for amendments to the regulations, welcomed the announcement, stating that it “clearly shows that the problems of the Deforestation Regulation run deep”.
“If the deforestation regulation had entered into force unchanged on 1 January, it would have caused unsolvable problems for many small foresters, farmers, and small and medium-sized enterprises, such as medium-sized coffee roasters. Before requiring them to enter data into a database, the system has to function properly,” argued Peter Liese MEP, the EPP Group’s spokesman on environment.
WWF accuses European Commission of poor excuses
Meanwhile, WWF has labelled the move from the EU Commission as “embarrassing”.
“It is probably no coincidence that this move comes right as the Commission pursues an unprecedented deregulation agenda, throwing the EUDR under the bus,” contended Anke Schulmeister-Oldenhove, forest policy manager at the WWF European Policy Office.
“This is unacceptable and a massive embarrassment for President Von der Leyen and her Commission. If this technical issue is real, this shows not only incompetence, but also a clear lack of political will to invest sufficiently in a timely implementation of the EUDR.”
The WWF warns there is a real danger that a delay will lead to further weakening of the law with “devastating” consequences for forests worldwide.
“We should be able to expect more from our leaders than an excuse like ‘The dog ate my homework’! We’re calling on the Commission to step up its efforts and investments to get this system up and running by the end of the year instead of proposing a further delay of this important law, and caving in to political pressure,” Schulmeister-Oldenhove added.
Luker Chocolate: ‘Delays risk weakening policy’
Luker Chocolate’s sustainability lead Julia Ocampo, said that whilst Luker is already shipping fully EUDR-compliant cocoa to the EU, they understand why some are struggling.
Writing for Food Manufacture before this announcement, she said: “We believe the question shouldn’t be ‘delay or don’t delay’. Instead, it should be how do we support smallholder-inclusive compliance that actually works?”
However, she also cautioned that “further delays or last-minute changes would risk weakening one of the EU’s most important environmental policies”.
‘Bad news for eco-conscious consumers’
Mark Field, founder and CEO Prof Consulting Group Ltd, said the announcement will “ultimately be bad news for consumers looking for greater level of confidence and transparency grocery shopping”.
He added: “Those forward-thinking companies that have invested in their supply chain working towards compliance will in the short term have to compete with brands that have less visibility into their supply chains and may still be making sustainable sourcing claims. My advice to food and drink businesses looking to build brand trust would be to continue to ‘do the right thing’ to protect their brand regardless of delays to the regulatory environment.”
