The European Commission has held the line on the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) primary legal text, ruling out a third rewrite of the law and instead delivering today’s mandated simplification review through a package of secondary legislation. That is according to a Commission spokesperson, who told reporters at a Brussels briefing on Monday: “We will not reopen the European Union Deforestation Regulation,” with a five-part package being finalised for delivery in the coming days.
The package contains a review report, frequently asked questions, fresh guidance, a Delegated Act on scope and an Implementing Act on the IT system. The spokesperson ruled out a Friday delivery due to the May Day public holiday and said the report would follow once finalised.
Wood Central understands that the Delegated Act will bring several new derivatives of palm oil and coffee into scope, including soap made with palm oil and instant coffee, while introducing exemptions for samples, packaging, accessory materials, used and second-hand products, and waste. The expansion proceeds under Articles 34(1) and 35 of the EUDR, which delegates that authority to the Commission without requiring the primary text to reopen.
The Commission flagged this approach at the 39th meeting of the EUDR Expert Group in February, when officials told stakeholders that the core text would remain closed and only targeted tweaks would follow. As Wood Central reported when the European Union struck its eleventh-hour deal late last year, the December 2025 amendment under Regulation (EU) 2025/2650 already pushed the start date to 30 December 2026 for medium and large operators and 30 June 2027 for small and micro operators.
It comes as internal Commission documents seen by ENDS Europe showed the TRACES platform overload was triggered by an automated submissions feature added at industry request, despite the EUDR only requiring an electronic interface from 2028. The Implementing Act now targets that bottleneck directly, with national competent authorities required to flag any significant errors or outages to the Commission under Regulation (EU) 2025/2650.
Lobbying has intensified in recent days, with groups pushing for fresh legislative amendments while major food importers have resisted any further delay. Transatlantic pressure split along the same lines: US Ambassador to the EU Andrew Puzder met Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall in Brussels on Monday, pushing for deeper compliance relief on the back of last August’s US-EU Framework, which recognises American producers as posing negligible deforestation risk.
Puzder later posted on X that the review “should deliver real results, reducing regulatory compliance costs” rather than increasing bureaucracy. Cutting against the Trump administration’s lobbying, 32 US House Democrats wrote to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Friday, urging her to “hold the line” and accusing the administration of seeking to undermine both EU and US forest protections.
The Democrats’ letter, authored by Texas Representative Lloyd Doggett and Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaib and signed by lawmakers from 17 states, warned a third delay would damage forests and create market uncertainty for businesses already invested in EUDR compliance. The Commission’s review report is now due to the European Parliament and the Council shortly, with Article 34(2) of the regulation requiring a full general review by 30 June 2030 and every five years thereafter.
For more on the EUDR’s path to today’s deadline, Wood Central reported when the European Union struck its eleventh-hour deal to delay the regulation by 12 months in December last year, when over 400 lawmakers backed the major concessions that simplified obligations for downstream operators and removed printed products from scope, and when the European Parliament fast-tracked the 12-month delay under the Danish Council Presidency.
Update: The package has since drawn its first major continental industry rebuttal, with German sawmillers branding the EUDR a ‘bureaucratic behemoth’ and rejecting Brussels’ simplification effort as inadequate.
