InfoSAWIT, BRUSSELS – European Commission (EC) announced the additional guidelines to support the implementation of European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). Besides, EC proposed to extend the implementation for big companies until 30 December 2025 and for the small scale – partners until 30 June 2026. It was proposed based on the inputs from global scale – stakeholders that mentioned the concern about their preparedness to face the new regulation.
The additional guidelines should deliver clarity for the companies and legal officers to implement it. Even though technically, the set implementation is ready, EC noted some global scale – partners, including EC members, would not fully be ready. “The extension for 12 months would deliver some time for them to confirm that the implementation would be effective and right,” EC mentioned, as in the official statement that InfoSAWIT got, Thursday (3/10/2024).
The new guidelines consist of 11 chapters that covers some significant issues, such as, the definition of legal, the obligation of traceability, the regulation for the micro and small companies/partners, the renew thing of laws, the clarification about ‘forest degradation’ and ‘operator’ in the context of EUDR.
EC also introduced the strategic work frames to get international scale – cooperation to support every country that would involve in the free deforestation agricultural supply chain. In this context, there would be five main focuses to do, including the supports for the smallholders. Besides, the frame work would be about eight main principles, such as, the approach in human rights – base to encourage the fair and inclusive transition.
As part of the implementation, special information technology (IT) system to register due diligence by the companies would start operating in November 2024. The system was formulated to ease the companies and traders to register their due diligence before the regulation would officially be implemented.
EC hoped European Parliament and Board would approve the proposal to extend the implementation before this year would end. Every stakeholder would prepare themselves better to face the big challenges about global scale – deforestation.
The Next
For the additional guidelines and extension were proposed, EC would be optimist that EUDR implementation would smoothly run. It is hoped the countries in partnership would take the additional time to perfect their preparation. On the other hand, EC would keep conducting dialogue with the countries to confirm their obedience and implementation effectively in the future. (T2)
