The Commission on April 15 proposed further simplifications and administrative burden reductions to facilitate the implementation of the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) in view of its entry into application at the end of this year.
It has published new guidance documents and Frequently Asked Questions that will provide companies, EU Member States’ authorities and partner countries with additional simplified measures and clarifications on how to demonstrate that their products are deforestation-free.
Key simplification measures include:
– Large companies can reuse existing due diligence statements when goods, previously on the EU market, are reimported. This means that less information needs to be submitted in the IT system;
– An authorised representative can now submit a due diligence statement on behalf of members of company groups;
– Companies will be allowed to submit due diligence statements annually instead of for every shipment or batch placed on the EU market;
– Clarification of ‘ascertaining’ that due diligence has been carried out, so that large companies downstream benefit from simplified obligations (a minimal legal obligation of collecting reference numbers of Due Diligence Statement (DDS) from their suppliers and using those references for their own DDS submissions now applies).
The simplifications introduced will be further complemented by a Delegated Act, published also on April 15 for public consultation.
The Commission is currently finalising the country benchmarking system through an Implementing Act. It will be adopted no later than 30 June 2025 following discussions with Member States.
Here are the documents:
- Updated Guidance Document: https://environment.ec.europa.eu/document/5dc7aa19-e58f-42a3-bbbe-f0eb2e5a1d3a_en
