In breaking news, the European Commission (EC) announced on October 2, 2024 that in response to pressures from international partners, the full implementation of the EUDR could be delayed by a year. The EC states this is to “give concerned parties additional time to prepare.” This proposal will still have to be approved by the European Parliament and the Council and, if passed, it would mean that the law would be applicable on December 30, 2025 for large companies and, on June 30, 2026 for SMEs. The commission has also been clear in its announcement that “the extension proposal in no way puts into question the objectives or the substance of the law, as agreed by the EU co-legislators.”
The proposal was considered on October 16th by each member country’s Ambassador and an agreement was made to officially propose the delay. Next, the proposal will be voted on by the EU Parliament in a plenary (full house) session. If the delay is approved by the EU Parliament with no amendments proposed, the delay could be official around the end of November or early December. At press time, all indications are that the EU Parliament will vote similarly to the EU Ambassadors and the delay will be approved by the end 2025 and the original timeline will be pushed back one year. The new timeline would require compliance with the EUDR by the end of 2025 for “large” importers (more than 250 employees), and by June 2026 for SMEs (< 250 employees).
This is of course good news for the U.S. hardwood industry, as it will provide more time for preparation and implementation of the SHC deforestation-free framework being developed by AHEC. It will also provide more time to develop an accompanying chain of custody standard and continue to lobby for a jurisdictional approach to the provision of geolocation rather than individual plots of land. However, this will not change the timeline AHEC has set, we still plan to deliver the first version of the platform and framework by the end of this year. The delay will enable the system to be fully trialed from the beginning of 2025, to allow users to become familiar with the interface and for AHEC to communicate its availability more effectively to global markets.
The commission has also published the principles of the methodology to the EUDR benchmarking exercise for assessing risk. The EC has confirmed that following this methodology “a large majority of countries worldwide will be classified as ‘low risk’. This will give the opportunity to focus collective efforts where deforestation challenges are more acute.” This statement implies that low-risk suppliers such as U.S. hardwoods will be subject to lower levels of scrutiny, but it does not alter the need to provide geolocation data.
Finally, the EC has also issued an extensive new set of FAQs and EUDR guidance, but without detailed analysis, it is not yet possible to say whether this will fundamentally change any aspects of the law or how it’s implemented as far as American hardwoods are concerned. We will be examining this document in the coming weeks and report our findings next month.
If you are interested in learning more about AHEC’s approach to the EUDR: the Sustainable Hardwood Coalition, you can learn more at www.shc-cert.org.
