🇪🇺 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are currently negotiating the policies their coalition will support over the next five year mandate.
Conservative lawmakers from the European People’s Party (hashtag#EPP) are asking to postpone and re-open the EU Deforestation Regulation (hashtag#EUDR) in order to “address problems related to its implementation”. This is baffling given the support the EPP gave to getting the law passed: the EUDR’s lead rapporteur was EPP and his fellow MEPs overwhelmingly voted in favour just a year ago.
👉 Their indecision will hit European businesses and forests hard!
Companies have spent millions preparing for implementation and many small-scale farmers are proactively making themselves compliant, seeing it as an opportunity to improve their livelihoods. They see the benefits of increasing traceability, and thereby reducing supply chain complexity, and the number of middlemen.
The Regulation has already spurred long lasting improvements in producer countries.
🇧🇷 In Brazil, the Agriculture Ministry is setting up a tracking system to check whether cattle have been illegally grazed in protected areas or Indigenous territories.
🇮🇩 In Indonesia, authorities are improving national palm oil and timber traceability systems.
🇨🇮 In Côte D’Ivoire, the EUDR is encouraging technological innovations which could potentially lift smallholders out of poverty.
Moving the goal posts at the last minute would be a blow to all of their efforts and damage the EU’s domestic and international credibility!
Mohammed Chahim Pascal Canfin Heléne Fritzon Kathleen Van Brempt Manfred Weber Bas Eickhout Sibylle Steffan Virginijus Sinkevičius Delara Burkhardt Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy Christophe Hansen Tiemo Wölken
