ClientEarth Communications
17th December 2025
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The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) was designed to ensure that products placed on, and exported from, the EU market are no longer linked to deforestation or forest degradation. Adopted more than two and a half years ago after years of careful assessment, negotiation and democratic scrutiny, it was intended as a cornerstone of the EU’s climate and biodiversity action.
Instead, EU lawmakers have now chosen to delay and weaken it.
In December 2025, the European Parliament voted in plenary to adopt the revision of the EUDR, delaying and diluting the law and opening the door to its further review in 2026, in another joint vote by the right (EPP) and far-right political groups.
The most immediate change is a one-year delay of the Regulation’s application.
Large operators and traders will now have until 30 December 2026 to comply.
Micro and small enterprises will have until 30 June 2027.
This comes on top of a previous one-year delay at the end of last year, resulting in another full year without action to address the impacts of EU consumption on forests, the climate and human rights.
Delaying the EUDR has tangible environmental, climate, and economic consequences.
The Regulation’s original Impact Assessment accompanying the proposal for the EUDR estimated that, once implemented, the EUDR would:
Reduce EU-consumption and production driven deforestation by 29% by 2030
Save at least 72,000 hectares of forest every year starting 2030
Prevent a minimum of 32 million metric tonnes of CO₂ emissions annually
Generate economic savings of at least €3.2 billion per year
Postponing implementation pushes these benefits further into the future — at a time when forest loss and climate impacts are accelerating. The postponement also discounts efforts and significant financial investments countless businesses have already made towards compliance on the legitimate expectation that the EUDR would be implemented this year.
Beyond the delay, the agreement also reduces key safeguards.
Downstream operators and traders - who place relevant products on the market (or export them) and make relevant products available on the market - now face reduced obligations, despite their significant influence over supply chains.
At the same time, micro and small primary operators in so-called “low-risk” countries (all EU countries but also some third countries such as the UK, the US or Ukraine) are effectively exempted from core due-diligence requirements. They are required to submit one-off simplified declarations.
By making only operators who are the first to place a relevant on the EU market responsible for ensuring that products are “deforestation-free”, the revised approach weakens full traceability and shared responsibility across supply chains. This creates blind spots that undermine enforcement, make it harder for authorities to trace non-compliant products, and increase the risk of illegal goods entering the EU market in direct competition with compliant products.
The co-legislators have also agreed to remove certain printed products (e.g. books, newspapers, printed pictures) from the scope of the EUDR, potentially setting a dangerous precedent leading to the exclusion of more products.
Adding further uncertainty, the agreement introduces a “simplification review clause”, requiring the European Commission to review the EUDR by end April 2026 — before it has even applied to operators. This raises serious questions about how meaningful such a review can be in the absence of implementation data or enforcement experience.
Deforestation is not only an environmental issue. It fuels climate change, is linked to human right violations, accelerates biodiversity loss and creates systemic economic risks that directly affect Europe.
Climate impacts already cost EU farmers more than €28 billion every year, according to studies by the European Investment Bank and the European Commission. Research by the University of Mannheim and the European Central Bank shows that extreme weather events in 2025 alone are expected to cause at least €43 billion in direct economic losses, with costs rising sharply in the coming years.
Delaying and weakening one of the EU’s most effective tools to tackle global deforestation runs counter to these realities.
The EUDR remains a vital piece of legislation. EU institutions must now focus on ensuring effective and robust implementation.
Protecting forests is essential for climate stability, biodiversity, human rights of affected communities and Europe’s own economic resilience. Further delays risk undermining all of these — and shifting the costs of inaction onto European citizens and future generations.