European Parliament Faces Pressure Over Postponed Deforestation Law Implementation

New pause for the anti-deforestation law. The European Union has opted to delay for the second consecutive year the entry into force of the law against deforestation. The European Commissioner for the Environment, Jessika Roswall, has announced the delay of the regulation, which was initially scheduled to begin to be implemented on December 31st, 2024.

“We believe that we cannot yet implement the law without generating an impact on companies”, explained the representative yesterday in statements reported by various media, to which she added the need to provide more time for the business sector to assume the burden.

The regulation seeks to close the market to products coming from deforested land, and has historically been rejected by countries such as the United States and Brazil. The text proposes that companies importing raw materials such as wood or rubber, for example, must demonstrate through a geolocation system that the extraction of these products has not generated deforestation in their place of origin.

Brussels has also opened the door to simplifying the regulation before its entry into force

“We need more time to eliminate the risk posed by this information burden on IT systems,“ said Roswall, disassociating the decision from possible pressure from other international powers. This new delay is in line with the demands of the European People’s Party, the largest force in the European Parliament.

“If the regulation on deforestation had entered into force unchanged on January 1st, it would have caused irresolvable problems for many companies in the agriculture sector,“ the party said. In the case of fashion, the law will affect some of the lines of companies with home clothing divisions, such as Zara Home, Lefties or Mango.

Along with this delay, Roswall has also opened the door to the law coming into force in the future being subject to simplification, a process that Brussels is advocating in some of its most controversial regulations. For the time being, this new delay is now in the hands of the Council and the European Parliament, after two letters were formally sent to the bodies with the proposal for a new delay.