The European Commission has taken major steps to address concerns over the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) after publishing new guidelines. These guidelines, combined with finalising an improved country benchmarking system (which will come into effect on June 30, 2025), will reduce administrative and compliance costs by around 30%.
“This will ensure a simple, fair and cost-efficient implementation of this key piece of legislation,” according to a statement from the European Commission. “All the updated measures are expected to reduce the number of due diligence statements companies significantly need to file…ensuring easy and efficient data entry for all users.”
The new measures, published last month, are supported by the Delegated Act – currently out for public consultation – which provides further clarifications and simplifications on the scope of EUDR, addressing stakeholders’ requests for guidance on specific product categories: “This will also avoid unnecessary administrative costs for economic operators and authorities,” the Commision said.
The EUDR will hit every part of the timber supply chain…
In March, Wood Central reported that the new rules could see timber imports from high-risk deforestation countries (including Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brazil) drop by more than 25%, and even peak at 38% if definitions include agricultural conversion (dubbed EUDR+) – with the shortfall coming from Canada and the United States.
“The results indicate that high-deforestation countries, such as Brazil, Indonesia, and Malaysia, are expected to face significant reductions in roundwood production and exports, with downstream effects on sawn wood and panel prices,” according to a new report led by Craig Johnston who simulated the impact of the EUDR on the global supply of timber-based products. “At the same time, low-deforestation countries, including Canada (1.4% increase) and the United States (0.1% increase), may experience slight increases in production to meet EU demand.”
It comes after the Commission delayed the EUDR until December 2025, “so that companies can comply with the law that ensures products sold in the EU are not sourced from deforested lands.”
At the time, Wood Central reported that the new law will take effect on December 30 2025 for large companies and June 30 2026 for small and micro-enterprises: “In response to concerns raised by EU member states, non-EU countries, traders and operators that they would not be able to comply with the rules if applied as of the end of 2024, the Commission proposed postponing the applicate date of the deforestation regulation by one year.”
Key simplification measures now include:
With the most recent announcement, the Commission has introduced several simplification measures, for example:
- Large companies can reuse existing due diligence statements when goods previously on the EU market are reimported. This means that less information needs to be submitted in the IT system.
- An authorised representative can now submit a due diligence statement on behalf of members of company groups.
- Companies can submit due diligence statements annually instead of for every shipment or batch placed on the EU market.
- Clarification of ‘ascertaining’ that due diligence has been carried out, so that large companies downstream benefit from simplified obligations (a minimal legal obligation of collecting reference numbers of Due Diligence Statement (DDS) from their suppliers and using those references for their own DDS submissions now applies)
For more information on EUDR, visit Wood Central’s special feature here.
