The Council of the European Union and the European Parliament have reached a provisional agreement on a targeted revision of the European regulation on deforestation-free products (EUDR), with the aim of simplifying due diligence obligations, reducing administrative burdens and postponing the entry into application of the rules.
The agreement, which comes after months of pressure from Member States, companies and competent authorities that had highlighted operational criticalities mainly linked to the complexity of the traceability system and the functioning of the European IT system (as we previously reported here), first and foremost provides for a straightforward postponement of the application of the regulation for all operators to 30 December 2026, overcoming the initial hypothesis of a simple “grace period” for medium-sized and large companies. For micro and small operators, a further six-month period is also предусмотрed, which in fact shifts their obligations to 30 June 2027.
One of the key elements of the agreement concerns the redefinition of responsibilities in the “due diligence” process. The obligation to submit the declaration will rest exclusively with operators who place the product on the market for the first time. Downstream operators will no longer be required to repeat the entire procedure, but only to retain the reference number of the original declaration. This change aims to significantly reduce the bureaucratic burden along the supply chain.
For micro and small primary operators, a further simplified regime is introduced. A one-off declaration will be sufficient, from which an identifier valid for the purposes of the traceability required by the regulation will be generated. This measure also responds to the criticisms that have emerged in particular in sectors with greater production fragmentation.
The text also confirms the will to maintain an ongoing dialogue between institutions, experts and stakeholders, through the Commission’s expert group and the multi-stakeholder platform on forest protection and restoration. The competent authorities will also be required to promptly notify the Commission of any IT system disruptions, in order to avoid operational blockages.
To further reduce administrative burdens, the co-legislators decided to exclude certain categories of printed products, such as books, newspapers and images, from the scope of application of the regulation, as they are deemed to pose a low risk of deforestation.
A further key step is represented by the request to the European Commission to prepare, by 30 April 2026, an overall assessment report on the impact of the EUDR. The document will have to analyse in particular the effects on businesses, with specific attention to smaller companies, and possibly propose corrective measures, operational guidelines or technical improvements to the information system.
The political agreement will now have to be formally approved by both the Council and the Parliament before entering into force.
EUDR
The EUDR, which entered into force in June 2023, aims to prevent the placing on the European market of raw materials and derived products responsible for deforestation or forest degradation. The supply chains involved include, among others, cattle, cocoa, coffee, soy, palm oil, rubber and timber. Originally, application was scheduled for 30 December 2024, and was already postponed once to 30 December 2025. The new revision, proposed by the Commission in October 2025, responds to the persistent operational difficulties reported by the productive sector.
With this second postponement and with the simplifications introduced, the European Union is attempting to rebalance environmental ambition and the operational sustainability of companies. The real test will now be the concrete implementation of the traceability system and controls, which will determine the actual effectiveness of the regulation in combating deforestation.
