The European Parliament has voted to streamline the EU’s landmark deforestation law, adopting measures intended to ease implementation for companies, global supply-chain actors, and partner countries. The move follows an earlier decision to fast-track the European Commission’s proposal to simplify compliance requirements.
Under Parliament’s position, all companies will receive an additional year to comply with the EU Deforestation Regulation, which aims to ensure that products sold within the bloc are not linked to deforested land. Large operators and traders would need to comply from 30 December 2026, while micro and small enterprises would follow from 30 June 2027. Lawmakers said the delay is designed to support a smoother transition and allow more time to strengthen the IT system used for electronic due diligence statements.
MEPs also endorsed changes to simplify due diligence obligations. Responsibility for submitting due diligence statements would lie with the businesses first placing products on the EU market, rather than with downstream operators and traders. Micro and small primary operators would be required to file only a one-off simplified declaration. Parliament further requested a simplification review by 30 April 2026 to assess the regulation’s administrative impact.
The text was approved by 402 votes to 250, with eight abstentions. Parliament will now begin negotiations with EU member states on the final version of the legislation, which must be endorsed by both Parliament and the Council and published in the EU’s Official Journal before the end of 2025 for the one-year delay to take effect.
The regulation, originally adopted in April 2023, targets deforestation linked to EU consumption of commodities including cocoa, coffee, palm oil, soya, wood, rubber, charcoal, printed paper, and cattle products. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, 420 million hectares of forest were lost globally between 1990 and 2020—an area larger than the EU—with EU consumption responsible for roughly 10% of worldwide deforestation.
