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2w ago

EU Seeks 2026 Start for Anti-Deforestation Law Citing IT Shortfalls

Brussels says the due-diligence platform lacks the capacity to process declarations at scale.

An oil palm farmer walks through a plantation in Pontian, Malaysia April 24, 2025. REUTERS/Hasnoor Hussain/File Photo
Image
A palm oil plantation in Indonesia. Market leakage — sellers shifting EU-bound commodities to other less regulated markets — could undermine the effectiveness of the EUDR in some supply chains. Image by Ryan Woo/CIFOR via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
European Union flags flutter outside the EU Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium July 16, 2025. REUTERS/Yves Herman//File Photo

Overview

  • The European Commission has asked to postpone the EU Deforestation Regulation by one year to late 2026, pointing to serious capacity problems with the information system that will handle due-diligence statements.
  • So far the Commission has only notified Parliament and the Council by letter, meaning the legal start dates remain 30 December 2025 for larger firms and 30 June 2026 for small operators until a formal amendment is adopted.
  • Commission officials warn the system could slow or fail under expected volumes, and an EU source said tests showed initial load estimates were underestimated by at least a factor of ten.
  • The rules ban imports of commodities such as coffee, cocoa, soy, timber, palm oil, cattle, printing paper and rubber if produced on land deforested after December 2020, requiring geolocation-based tracing to prove products are deforestation-free.
  • Center-right EPP figures and some industry voices welcomed more time, while NGOs like WWF and Fern condemned the move as a setback that risks stranded compliance costs; the Commission denied any link to a new trade deal with Indonesia.