Deforestation law: the dismantling of the EU Green Deal has begun, but it can be stopped

Brussels, 14 November 2024 – While global leaders are gathered in Azerbaijan for COP29, centre-right and far-right parties in the European Parliament have teamed up to begin to dismantle the EU Green Deal, in a series of tight votes over a key law to address deforestation. 

The amendments to the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) that MEPs endorsed in a closely-watched vote in Brussels would add loopholes that open the law up to challenge, create confusion, and will drive forest destruction, according to Greenpeace. 

Greenpeace EU forest policy director Sébastien Risso said: “More than a million EU citizens demanded a strong law to protect forests, and in 2022 they got it. So it is absolutely shameful that now, almost two years later, the European People’s Party has abandoned its previous support for this urgently-needed law in light of the climate emergency, and has teamed up with parties of the populist and extreme right to drastically weaken the EU deforestation regulation. Companies and third countries have been preparing for this law since its adoption last year.  The EPP’s abrupt abandonment of principle, just weeks before the law kicks in, threatens to undermine the trust in the EU’s ability to provide a stable legal environment for businesses and investors. The European Commission should never have opened the door to this chaos in the first place, and must now withdraw its proposal to prevent further damage. The world’s forests cannot wait.”

The European Parliament voted to amend the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) – a law that obliges sellers of products like beef, coffee, chocolate, palm oil and wood to prove that their products are deforestation-free – by creating a so-called “no risk” country benchmarking category. The changes undermine the objectives and effectiveness of the EUDR by introducing loopholes and creating risks of circumvention. The EUDR already has a “low risk” category that covers countries with a risk of deforestation only in “exceptional” cases. 

However, “low risk” countries are supposed to be identified on a set of objective and quantitative criteria and, even for products coming for low risk countries, basic safeguards will apply to guarantee that the products are deforestation free: traceability, supply chain transparency, respect for the deforestation-free standard and the obligation to submit a due diligence statement. 

The “no risk” category, on the contrary, will allow a big part of deforestation risk trade to go under the radar, will eliminate the core traceability and transparency requirements, dispense companies from risk assessment and make them virtually immune from checks. Only 0.1% of companies importing “no risk” goods will be subject to inspection.   

Since some countries would be exempt from EUDR checks thanks to the new “no risk” category, the amendments would destroy the “level playing field” between countries that had been carefully crafted in the negotiations leading up to the 2022 agreement of the EUDR. It will also reward companies that carried on with business as usual, while penalising those that invested to be EUDR ready by January 2025. 

MEPs also backed the European Commission’s initial proposal to delay the application of the law by one year. 

Forests are critical lines of defence against climate and ecosystem breakdown. They stabilise the climate, allow biodiversity to thrive and provide livelihoods for millions of people. 

Greenpeace is now calling on the European Commission to withdraw the proposal as amended by MEPs, and to press ahead according to the original timeline for the EUDR’s application from 30 December 2024. 

The amendments tabled by the European People’s Party MEP Christine Schneider (CDU, Germany) conflict with the Commission’s clear message when announcing its proposal to delay the EUDR that it does not want to put into question the law’s objectives or substance, as agreed last year by the European Commission, European Parliament and the EU’s national governments. 

The EPP previously led negotiations on the EUDR and championed it until this year, when the party abruptly changed its tune and began to describe as a “bureaucratic monster” the law it had co-written, voted for, and celebrated.  

On the morning of the vote, facing fierce pushback from companies and industry groups, civil society organisations, investors, citizens and other political parties in the European Parliament, the EPP withdrew several other amendments, taking off the table a plan to extend the delay to two years and also dropping demands to exempt large traders from due diligence obligations. 

The way individual MEPs voted will be published later today. During and immediately after the voting some MEPs protested that their voting machines were not functioning. 

Next steps

The European Commission can withdraw its initial proposal if it determines that the amendments go too far. Greenpeace is calling on the Commission to withdraw the proposal. 

If the Commission does not withdraw its proposal, then MEPs will have to negotiate with national EU governments, who have already given their approval to a one-year delay in the application of the EUDR without seeking any further changes. There is very little time for these negotiations to take place, as the EUDR is meant to apply from 30 December 2024.

We updated this press release shortly after publication to correctly refer to January 2025 as the time which companies were targeting to be ready to comply with the EU Deforestation Regulation.