InfoSAWIT, JAKARTA – On 6 December 2022, European Union Commission published European Union Deforestation Regulation that the deadline would be in the early of 2025. But the regulation would not be immediately implemented for micro, small, and medium businesses (MSMB) in Europe but would be effective in June 2025 or one semester later than the time for other countries.

But Council of Palm Oil Producing Countries (CPOPC) did act about the regulation. Indonesia and Malaysia did same mission to Brussels to meet the high level -management in European Union commission and discussed EUDR.

"Unfortunately, MSMB in the continent should wait for the implementation until June 2025. Why do they get extra time for one semester while the smallholders have not the same time? It is not fair,” General Secretary of CPOPC, Rizal Affandi Lukman said in Media Gathering CPOPC that InfoSAWIT attended, Thursday (14/12/2023), in Jakarta.

To get solution in implementation deadline of the regulation, CPOPC and European Union, the Government of Indonesia and Malaysia came to a conclusion to establish joint task force. The first meeting got five significant points. The first, inclusive smallholders which means, it needs to confirm that smallholders should be involve in palm oil supply chain to European Union.

The second, sustainable palm oil certification. CPOPC encouraged the continent to acknowledge national scale – certification, for instance, Indonesia Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) dan Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) as the model that EUDR is really implemented.

The third, Rizal continued, make traceability tools which means to qualify the terms and conditions in EUDR.

The fourth, determine country benchmarking which means if assessment would base on the country in a whole or per province and if they are concluded as high risk or low risk.

That is why Rizal thought, if a country is categorized as high risk, it would be difficult to get trade process because commodity sample to be checked would cover 90% while the low risk commodity sample to be checked would be only 1%.

The fifth, data secrecy. This would be the significant point because EUDR puts terms and conditions that every palm oil plantation company should deliver geolocation information. The question remains, what about data security if it is published?

Actually, the second meeting of joint task force with EUDR would be on 12 December 2023, but European Union should postpone the schedule by saying to prepare CPO 28 meeting in Dubai. This raised disappointment because it vanishes the opportunity to get the same agreement faster. The second meeting would be scheduled in the second week of January 2024.

“This joint task force would show the commitment to solve inequality in EUDR implementation and fair solution for every party involved in,” Rizal said. (T2)