"EU Parliament, Council Agree to Simplify, Delay Supply Chain Deforestation Law", 5 December 2025

Lawmakers in the European Parliament and Council announced Thursday evening that they have reached a provisional agreement to simplify and delay the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), a new law aimed at requiring companies to ensure that products imported to or exported from EU markets no longer contribute to deforestation and forest degradation globally.

As part of the agreement, the co-legislators also tasked the European Commission with reviewing impact of the new law early next year for potential further simplification, even before it will come into force...

The new regulation set rules for companies that place relevant products on the EU market, or export them, introducing mandatory due diligence rules, including a requirement to trace the products back to the plot of land where it was produced, to prove that the products were produced on land that was not subject to deforestation after 2020, and are compliant with all relevant applicable laws in force in the country of production.

The new agreement also introduces additional simplifications to the EUDR, placing the obligation to submit due diligence statements exclusively on the operators who first place the relevant products on the market, and having only the first downstream operator in the supply chain be responsible for collecting and retaining the reference number of the initial due diligence statement. The updated rules also ease compliance obligations for small and micro operators, requiring them to submit only a simple, one-off declaration in the EUDR IT system. The agreement also removes some printed products from the scope of the regulation, such as  books, newspapers, and printed pictures from the scope of the regulation, due to their limited deforestation risk.

In addition to the delay and changes to the regulation, the new agreement also calls on the Commission to carry out a new simplification review of the EUDR by the end of April 2026 – even before the newly proposed implementation dates – to evaluate the administrative burden and impact of the regulation, which could open the EUDR to even further changes.

The new provisional agreement will now be required to be formally adopted by the EU Parliament and Council before entering into force, with the aim of the updated regulation being finalized before the end of the year.