This article was originally prepared by David Burrows, together with Footprint Media Group and is also available here.
“Europe must keep its word. Don’t move the goalposts.” That was the plea from campaign group Mighty Earth in October as the EU dithered over another delay to (another) one of its flagship environmental laws.
The EU Deforestation Regulation, or EUDR, was designed to ensure that products placed on, and exported from, the EU market are no longer linked to deforestation or forest degradation. Years of careful assessment, negotiation and democratic scrutiny, had culminated in 2023 in a set of rules intended to be a cornerstone of the EU’s climate and biodiversity action.
Companies had prepared. Producer governments were ready. Consumers were aware. Millions of euros, hectares of forest, and farmer livelihoods were at stake.
Indeed, food and drink businesses that had invested millions into traceability, farmer mapping, and supply chain reform wanted to see the playing field levelled, for the EUDR to come into force.
But to no avail.
Instead, EU lawmakers chose to delay and further weaken the rules (and may in 2026 go further still). On December 18th, the EU Council formally adopted a “targeted revision” of the EU regulation on deforestation-free products, aimed at “simplifying its implementation and ensuring that operators, traders and authorities are adequately prepared for its application”.
The resulting amending legislation was published on December 23rd 2025, just seven days before the EUDR had been due to apply. The revision “streamlines” the due diligence requirements and postpones the application of the regulation for companies until December 30th 2026, with an extra six-month cushion for micro and small operators.
The revision “responds to concerns raised by member states and stakeholders regarding administrative burden and the readiness of the IT system necessary for the effective functioning of the EUDR, while fully preserving the regulation’s objectives of preventing deforestation and forest degradation linked to products placed on the EU market”, the Council said.
So, once again businesses had been taken to the wire on these rules before they were once again postponed. During this 12 month delay there is also much more to do. We are grappling with a greater amount of detail – not just delay, but simplification.
The Commission must now carry out a simplification review by April 30th to evaluate the administrative burden and impact of the regulation, particularly for the smallest companies. This worries campaign groups as well as large food and drink companies that have prepared for the rules.
“This deregulation is presented as ‘simplification’, but its real-world impact is far from simple: Fewer rules, less responsibility for polluters, and greater risks to people’s health and safety,” said Mighty Earth.
‘Simplification’ is certainly a word that scares environmental campaigners working on EU policy, with various laws being carved up or watered down. The various Omnibus packages to date have aimed to streamline a variety of sustainability (and a range of other) regulations so they are less of an administrative burden on smaller businesses in particular, while maintaining EU competitiveness.
What this means for the EUDR is not yet clear. And the chop and change provides little of the clarity that these businesses need to make good on their climate plans, including pledges to cut out commodities linked to deforestation in their supply chains, let alone effectively implement the rules.
Are we seeing regulation or deregulation? It could be that the answer is more complicated than one or the other. Although the aim of these ‘simplifying’ proposals is deregulation, in practice it results in businesses needing to monitor and track more, take ‘guesses’ as to whether simplifying proposals are going to go through (and in what form), and ultimately spend more time and money absorbing and practically applying new simplifying regulation.
In a case like EUDR, where the proposals for delay (and beyond) came just over a month before the rules were due to apply, the impact can be considerable. Even trying to read and understand how the proposal fits with the original legislation can be tricky.
Storm brewing
The EUDR applies to specific commodities: cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soya and wood. Products that are listed as ‘relevant products’ under the Annex I EUDR, which contain or have been made with the in-scope commodities and fit within one of the CN Codes listed, are captured. And all these commodities can only be placed on the EU market or exported when they are deforestation-free, including by sharing plot-level geolocation data.
As we explained during a legal roundtable with Footprint last year, the reporting involves considerable amounts of detail (partly explaining why there are concerns about the ability of IT systems to cope with it all). Simply sourcing ‘certified sustainable products’ is not enough, for example.
The due diligence statement that companies must submit to the EU system to prove their products are deforestation-free has to include ‘country of production and the geolocation of all plots of land where the relevant commodities were produced’. Which in principle sounds straightforward enough, but it is only as business works through real life examples of real life supply chains that literally hundreds of unanswered questions on how to apply the rules and fill the paperwork will appear.
Despite the delay, this is not the time for companies to slow down. The European Commission has said it will not reopen the rules again, but will instead propose targeted tweaks to simplify implementation and adjust the list of products covered by the regulation.
During a closed-door meeting in the second week of February, the Commission reportedly reassured industry representatives and non-profits that the core text of the EUDR would not be revised in April. However, there will be a delegated act amending the annex specifying which products fall under the rules, according to a recent report by Euractiv. Among the changes under consideration is the possible inclusion of soap made with palm oil and instant coffee – products not currently covered by the regulation, the site reported on the back of conversations with some of those at the meeting.
There has been a lot of to and fro, but lawyers believe that companies must continue to prepare and make a virtue of the additional time provided. Global food and beverage businesses have invested time and money to ensure their own systems can assimilate the new traceability data requirements for EUDR, for example.
Changing the goalposts, however little, at this stage makes navigating already complex regulations and global supply chain compliance an even bigger headache for companies. This means the gap between the have prepared and the have-not prepared could grow.
Those that have not will need to catch up quickly in the few months extra they now have. Unprepared companies may struggle to effectively integrate data systems and understand how to manage them, for example. Procurement could also become a problem as the likelihood of a two-tier supply chain for these commodities – with a premium on EUDR compliant ones – increases with each passing day.
The uncertainty has not been helped by razing of the Amazon Soy Moratorium, a voluntary agreement not to purchase soy grown on land in the Amazon cleared after 2008. To suggest this is a turbulent time for buyers of food commodities is an understatement as geopolitics, costs and extreme weather all create havoc too.
Prepare and plan procurement
For food and drink companies the emphasis should be on building relationships with producers and suppliers, improving communication, and collaboration to work towards the eventual full implementation of EUDR – and securing resilient supplies.
Sarah Blachard from food sustainability consultancy Prof Consulting suggests that procurement “must be recognised as key to creating value, as opposed to cutting costs. There is too much focus on costcutting, juggling people and outsourcing, rather than investing in building skilled, knowledgeable teams who are willing to (and have the mandate) to work in genuine partnership with suppliers to secure supplies and build contingencies. Business must get serious about securing supplies that will continue in 1-2-5-10 years’ time,” she adds.
