Austria urges EUDR delay
A proposal from Austria that the European Commission should postpone the entry into application of the new European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) is gaining support from other member states.
EUDR is part of a wider commitment to making EU supply chains more environmentally responsible, which is the aim of the programme commonly known as the Green Deal. The intention behind EUDR is to show that products from seven commodities coming into the EU marketplace have played no part in driving deforestation. The commodities it affects are cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soya, wood and cattle.
From December 2024, larger companies will have to comply with EUDR. Small and medium enterprises will have to follow suit from June 2025.
As things stand, makers and users of leather in the European Union will have to collect data about the cattle from which hides and leather have come so as to demonstrate that the material has no link to deforestation. Industry leaders have said there is no traceability system available in the leather value chain that can provide the data required.
At the end of April two government ministers in Austria, representing agriculture and the economy, lent their weight to a request that the Commission postpone EUDR’s application.
The request from Austria said that EUDR presented “insurmountable challenges” for national governments and businesses.
Recent reports from Brussels have quoted Belgium’s agriculture minister, David Clarinval, as saying that more than a dozen of the 27 EU member states have now expressed support for delaying EUDR.
