Brussels, 6 December 2022
After nine hours of negotiations, on the 6th of December the Council and the European Parliament reached a provisional agreement to reduce the risk of deforestation and forest degradation linked to products that are imported into or exported from the EU. The law will cover several commodities such as cocoa, palm oil, tinder, coffee and soy. Moreover, it will apply to a range of derived products such as chocolate, furniture and printed paper.
The new law will include stringent due diligence obligations for the companies, which will be requested to trace the imported products back to the plot of land where they have been produced. Those related to deforestation will be banned from import and export to the EU.
Marian Jurečka, Czech minister of the environment stated: “The EU is a large consumer and trader of commodities that play a substantial part in deforestation - like beef, cocoa, soy and timber. The new rules aim to ensure that when consumers buy these products, they don't contribute to further degrading forest ecosystems. Protecting the environment around the world, including forests and rainforests, is a common goal for all countries and the EU is ready to take its responsibility”.
MEP Pascal Canfin, chairman of the European Parliament’s environment committee, added: “The great specificity of this law – and this is a world first for palm oil, cocoa, coffee, beef, and rubber – is the obligation to have a certificate based on satellite images and GPS coordinates to know exactly where the commodity comes from. When you arrive on the EU’s internal market – at the port of Amsterdam or Le Havre – you must show this certificate. And if you don’t have it, you can’t go in”.
The law will enter into force twenty days after its formal adoption by the European Parliament and EU countries, planned for the coming year.
Source: Euractiv