EU Deforestation Regulation: European Parliament votes on amendments including one-year delay

European Parliament vote 

On 14 November 2024, the European Parliament voted in favour of the Commission's proposal to delay application of the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) by one year - from the current date of 30 December 2024 to 30 December 2025 for large in-scope companies and 30 June 2026 for small and micro enterprises - (see European Parliament press release).

The Council had already agreed to the one-year delay, without suggesting any other amendments. 

The Parliament also voted in favour of a number of other amendments to the EUDR - the most significant of which is the creation of a new category of countries posing “no risk” on deforestation, in addition to the existing three categories of “low”, “standard” and “high” risk. Countries classified as “no risk” (defined as countries with stable or increasing forest area development) would face significantly less stringent requirements. The Commission has to finalise the country benchmarking system by 30 June 2025.

The additional amendments to the EUDR were not originally proposed by the Commission. They were proposed by some members of the European People’s Party (EPP) at a very late stage. The original set of EPP amendments included a proposal to delay application of the EUDR by two years (instead of one year) and a proposal to exclude traders from the scope of the Regulation. However, those amendments were withdrawn at the last minute before the vote today.  

It's been reported in the press that the voting machines of several MEPs failed during the vote on the amendments, with calls to re-do the votes. However, Parliament president Roberta Metsola apparently resisted calls from MEPs for a re-vote. The votes today were 371 votes in favour, 240 against, and 30 abstentions. 

The consolidated text of the EUDR following the voting today is not yet available but we would normally expect this to materialise within a few days.

Next steps

The Council and Parliament will now need to enter into negotiations ("trilogues") on the new amendments. This will need to done at break-neck speed to ensure everything is agreed before the end of the year. 

We will have to see what the Council's position is on the Parliament’s additional amendments, which have been criticised by other parties as there had been an understanding between the Council and Parliament that the only thing that was that up for grabs was the one-year delay and that neither side would seek to make any further changes to the Regulation. The Parliament is still hoping that everything can be finalised before the end of the year. 

Let's hope that is the case so that we can finally put an end to all the uncertainty that's been hanging over companies' heads for several months now (including as a result of the delayed adoption of the Commission’s guidance and setting up of the Deforestation Due Diligence Statement Registry). The EUDR has significant implications not just for companies that do business in the EU but also for some of the EU's key trading partners globally. 

NOTE ADDED ON 20/11/24: The Council agreed its negotiation position on 20 November (see Council press release). It agrees to the one-year delay but does not agree with the other amendments introduced by the Parliament. Negotiations between the two co-legislators can now start. The pressure is on conclude those negotiations as soon as possible so that the changes are adopted, signed and published in the Official Journal of the EU before 30 December 2024.

Final version of EUDR guidance

The final version of the Commission's guidance on the EUDR has now been published in the Official Journal of the EU (see here). 

There are no changes to the previous text the Commission published on 2 October - but the guidance is now available in all the official languages of the EU. 

Registration and training for the Deforestation Due Diligence Statement Registry (aka “Information System”) 

Since 6 November 2024, in-scope companies have had the possibility to register for the Information System and to attend online training organised by the Commission.

More information on registration and training is available here. The Information System User Guide can be found here.

See our previous blog post for details of the Commission's proposal and guidance.