Europe’s deforestation regulation, the EUDR, could be delayed by 12 more months to December 2026 and June 2027 for large and small firms, and could see more ‘simplifications’, under a new proposal put forward by the EU Presidency, and expected to be “fast-tracked” through the European Parliament in the coming hours.
It comes days after Wood Central revealed that the EUDR current rollout – still currently slated to go into effect on December 30 – is in “total chaos” after a majority of EU Ambassadors pushed to “stop the clock” on the regulation ahead of a December 15-18 vote in the European Commission.
Under the new proposal, current grace periods have been scrapped due to legal concerns, while several member states are pushing hard for further simplifications (beyond the ‘no risk green lane’ for SMEs in 141 countries) to be included in the proposed regulation.
“Several delegations considered that the proposal of the Commission could have gone further in terms of simplification measures and expressed support for additional reduction of administrative burdens at a later stage,” the Presidency warned, who urged members states to approve the Council mandate as “soon as possible,” adding that it would “extremely difficult to hold trilogues with the European Parliament on extensive changes to the substance of the proposal.”
“Such a schedule needs to allow the Parliament to adopt a position at first reading, on the basis of a test agreed by the Council and reviewed by the lawyer linguists, at the very latest during the plenary to be held on 15-18 December 2025, followed by adoption by the Council either at a Council meeting or through written procedure.”
Wood Central understands that the vote later today to fast-track the proposal will be followed by a far more contested vote next week on its content. A spokesperson from the powerful centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) – Europe’s largest party – said that it supports the “urgent procedure,” with the new proposal “a step in the right direction.”
However, the real challenge still lies in getting the majority of European members to agree on the content. In a letter sent earlier this month, members of the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) were looking to partner with the EPP on a “focused reform package” as they believe the current proposal did not “sufficiently resolve the underlying structural challenges that member states, operators and competent authorities are raising.”
- To learn why failures with the EUDR’s IT system could lead to further delays in the rollout of the world’s strictest deforestation regulation, click here for Wood Central’s special feature.
