World

US pushes EU to delay implementation of deforestation law

Jun 24, 2024 United States

The US government has requested the European Commission to delay the implementation of the so-called Anti-Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), seven months ahead of schedule

The request was made in a letter to the European Commission dated 30 May and seen by the Financial Times. In short, the EUDR regulation would require traders to provide documentation to prove that imports of everything from chocolate to furniture and livestock products have been produced without destroying forests, including a statement with geolocation data.

Gina Raimondo and Thomas Vilsack, the US Secretaries of Commerce and Agriculture, respectively, and Trade Representative Katherine Tai said the deforestation law posed “critical challenges” for US producers and urged the EU not to rush its enforcement, currently scheduled to begin on the 30^thof December 2024. “The EU’s regulation imposes impractical requirements that would unnecessarily restrict trade for products from low-risk countries that have responsibly managed supply chains, such as the United States”, the letter said.

The sectors most affected by the regulation in the US, the EU’s second-largest import partner, are the wood, paper and pulp industries. Just in 2022, the EU imported about 3.5 billion US dollars of American forest-based products (according to the US International Trade Commission figures).

The American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA) told the Financial Times that paper and pulp are made from sawmill residues and forest residues mixed from different sources, making it “effectively impossible” to trace each chip back to its original forest parcel. In addition, “the technology needed to trace our fibre flow to comply with this requirement does not currently exist”. The tanning industry has also pointed out its technical limitations.

Within the EU, too, there is internal opposition. The Development Commissioner Jutta Urpilainen and the Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski, as well as most of the EU agriculture ministers led by Austria, have also called for a delay. The International Trade Centre, a UN-backed body, also stressed that the law could hurt small producers from developing countries, who lack the technology to verify that their goods have not been grown on deforested land.

The Commission confirmed that it had received the letter and said that it would reply in due course.

Source: ft.com

Image Credits: resourcewise.com

European Union United States Environment Legal Tannery