The European Union will postpone the launch of its anti-deforestation law for a second time, Environment Commissioner Jessica Roswall announced on September 23, 2025. The regulation had already been delayed by a year following complaints from industries and trade partners, and many from the wood industry.<\/p>\n
Commissioner Roswall emphasized that the latest delay is primarily to address technical issues related to the information-technology system and is not connected to U.S. concerns about the policy. The Commission also highlighted that compliance with EUDR obligations will remain mandatory under any new trade deals, such as those concluded with Indonesia, the world\u2019s largest exporter of palm oil.<\/p>\n
Members of the European Parliament\u2019s centre-right EPP group welcomed the postponement, noting that it underscores the deeper challenges in implementing the law. Germany\u2019s Christine Schneider, the Parliament\u2019s lead negotiator on the file, reiterated calls for a new \u201czero-risk\u201d category that could exempt certain countries, including EU member states, from obligations if there is no real deforestation risk. Schneider stressed that the burden of proof for deforestation-free products should fall exclusively on the first distributor on the European market, protecting forests where the threat is genuine while reducing unnecessary administrative work for European foresters and businesses.<\/p>\n
Peter Liese, EPP Group Spokesman on Environment, added that if the regulation had entered into force unchanged on January 1, it would have created significant problems for small foresters, farmers, and SMEs such as medium-sized coffee roasters. Liese called for urgent simplifications to ensure that European producers and farmers, as well as third countries with proven sustainable practices, are exempted from additional documentation requirements.<\/p>\n
While the EU aims to combat global deforestation, the Parliament and Commission agree that the current bureaucratic setup risks undermining acceptance of European environmental policy and the law\u2019s practical effectiveness.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":96954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5204,4715],"tags":[3551,3291,5813],"class_list":["post-96953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news","category-market-analysis","tag-deforestation","tag-eu","tag-eudr","topic-forestry","topic-lumber","topic-sawmilling","topic-wood-products","area-europe","area-global"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n