Yesterday, EU Member States reached an agreement on a Council mandate for negotiations with the European Parliament regarding the EU Regulation on deforestation-free products (EUDR). The most significant demand: postponing the application start for all companies by one year.

In addition, the Council is calling for several measures that do not fully align with the European Commission’s proposal:

Key Council Proposals

• Simplified obligations for primary producers in countries without deforestation risks:
  • One-time submission of a simplified due diligence statement
  • Indication of the farm address instead of geolocation data of production areas
  • Provision of an estimated harvest quantity
  • Updates to the statement only in case of fundamental changes
  • Application of the simplified regime also to companies that market relevant products only through part of their operations, even if they exceed the SME threshold overall
  • No collection of reference numbers along the EU supply chain
• Revision clause in the EUDR:
  The European Commission should identify further potential for reducing bureaucracy by April 2026 and report to Member States, possibly presenting a legislative proposal.

Next Steps

Following the European Parliament’s position, trilogue negotiations between representatives of Parliament, Council, and Commission will begin. The outcome must then be confirmed by both the Council and the Parliament to ensure that the changes enter into force before the current EUDR application date. However, agreement on any changes is not guaranteed – until now the current version of the EUDR is still valid with starting date 30 December 2025.