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The European People’s Party (EPP) wants to make delaying the EU anti-deforestation law, which was due to come into force in January 2025, a priority for its next term, according to its draft five-year plan.
New anti-deforestation regulation (EUDR) will force companies to prove Certain productsAgricultural products such as cocoa, palm oil, coffee and cattle must be deforestation-free before they can enter the EU market.
In its draft priorities for the Commission’s work programme for 2024-2029, the EPP proposed delaying the implementation of the EU Dispute Settlement Regulation and addressing “issues related to its implementation”.
The document will be discussed at a meeting of the EPP group in Cascais, Portugal, from July 2 to 5.
Peter Liese, a prominent German MEP and the European People’s Party’s environment spokesman, has led opposition to the law’s impending implementation.
Liss, who was recently re-elected to the European Parliament, supports the regulation’s goal of ending global deforestation but criticised the final text as a “bureaucratic monstrosity” and placed the blame on the Greens, socialists, leftists and France’s Liberals.
“The outcome of EU dispute settlement would have been much worse if we (the EPP) had not been at the negotiations,” he told European Events.
Nevertheless, Christophe Hansen, an MEP from Luxembourg and a member of the European People’s Party, represented Parliament in negotiations with the member states on the EU dispute settlement agreement.
Anti-deforestation law gained Overwhelming support In the final vote in April 2023, 44 members of parliament voted against it, while 43 abstained.
The groundbreaking legislation is the first of its kind in the world and one of the last major environmental documents to pass Parliament without significant opposition from the European People’s Party.
Liese explained that when the EU Green Solution was approved, it was a “different time” and that “most people” in Parliament were pushing for a more ambitious Green Deal.
Just one month later, in May 2023, the European People’s Party Walked out Negotiations for the controversial Nature Recovery Act have sparked unprecedented opposition to new green legislation affecting agriculture.
However, Liss noted that he and other EPP members had foreseen the difficulties of implementing anti-deforestation regulations in a short period of time.
He therefore decided not to take part in the parliamentary vote on the EUDR, as he did not want to vote against the organization’s position.
“I don’t want to oppose it (the regulation) because everyone agrees we need to stop deforestation,” Liss said.
Liese stressed that the implementation of these rules will have a negative impact on small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) such as European coffee roasters and foresters.
“We need to keep this legislation. I’m not in favor of repealing it, but we need to amend it,” he stressed.
In recent months, the EU dispute settlement system has come under criticism, particularly from Minister of AgricultureConcerned that this will bring additional burdens to EU farmers, trader Affected products.
Furthermore, the European Commission’s guidelines for operators, which were expected in the spring, have not yet been issued, creating uncertainty for the EU private sector and the EU’s trading partners.
The new obligations will apply from January 2025 and for SMEs from July 2025.
(Editing by Angelo Di Mambro and Chris Powers)
*Additional reporting by Jonathan Packroff
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