Press release
European Commission grants deforestation laggards half-year immunity in last-minute EUDR concessions
21 October 2025
ClientEarth lawyers regret that the European Commission once again weakens efforts to halt global deforestation – this time by granting a six-month immunity from penalties and introducing new exemptions for traders and small and micro enterprises.
The European Commission today adopted a proposal to dilute the world’s first and only law designed to tackle the persistent problem of global deforestation – the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).
However, ClientEarth lawyers are relieved that the EU Commission has committed to ensuring the law enters into force for large companies on 30 December 2025, contrary to previous declarations.
ClientEarth lawyer Michael Rice said:
“The additional concessions to the EU deforestation regulation – an extra year’s delay for small and micro enterprises and simplified due diligence requirements seem more aimed at appeasing reluctant European forest owners than at solving the Commission’s IT issues. In theory, these forest owners should be the most prepared for the EUDR given they’ve been subject to similar requirements under the EU Timber Regulation for over a decade.
“Introducing legal exceptions at the 11th hour risks creating loopholes that can be exploited for circumvention. The EUDR already provides a balanced and proportionate approach for small and micro enterprises, including an extra six-month transition period. There is no apparent policy justification for these changes.”
“Laws are effectively meaningless unless they are backed by effective and dissuasive penalties. After a two-and-a-half-year transition period for EU businesses and governments to prepare, there is no justifiable reason to further delay enforcement. This effectively grants an immunity to the laggards who have failed to prepare while penalising the businesses that have invested in good faith to become compliant on time.”
“The EUDR represents an essential step in decoupling the EU market from forest destruction around the world. It is exactly the kind of legal evolution that EU leaders should be showcasing and promoting at the climate COP next month – taking place in one of the very rainforests the EUDR is designed to protect.”
The Commission proposal will now go through the EU Parliament and Council.
ENDS
Notes to editors:
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About the EU deforestation regulation
90% of global deforestation is linked to the production of just a few agricultural products that end up in our shops and supermarkets in some shape or form: products like beef, leather, soy – which is mainly fed to chickens, pigs and cows – palm oil, cocoa, coffee, rubber and timber. The EU doesn’t produce many of those products yet is a huge consumer of them – it is the second biggest importer of deforestation in the world through its import and consumption of these products.
1,2 million Europeans asked for a strong law to tackle imported deforestation.
The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) – adopted in June 2023 – prohibits companies from putting products on the EU market unless they are deforestation-free, degradation-free and legally produced.
In February 2025, a report by Profundo highlighted that the costs of implementing the EUDR are negligible.
European forests belong to around 16 million private and public forest owners. In the EU, about 60% of the forest area is privately owned and 40% public. Read more here.
About the EUDR delays
In October 2024, the Commission announced its plan to delay the implementation of the EU Deforestation Regulation by 12 months, pushing the deadline to December 30, 2025 This decision was later submitted to a vote in plenary session of the European Parliament.
The WWF’s Living Planet report 2024 already highlighted that such a delay risked crossing catastrophic tipping points with the Amazon expected to collapse if 20-25% is deforested (we have already deforested 17%).
In September 2025, nearly 200,000 citizens have asked the EU not to weaken EU environmental laws
On September 23, 2025 the EU Commission announced another one-year delay to the implementation of the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), citing IT problems.
About the EUDR Information System
The EUDR requires the Commission to establish a central information system for operators to submit due diligence statements to national competent authorities. Article 33 describes its essential functions and provides the Commission with a high degree of flexibility in designing and operating the system.
The Commission is empowered to establish rules for the functioning and use of the information system by means of implementing acts, which it has already done via Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/3084.
The information system was launched on 4 December 2024 and operators have been able to register with the system since November 2024. FAQ 7.9 of the Commission’s FAQs on the Implementation of the EUDR states that the information system ‘’will be finetuned over time as implementation advances’’, confirming the Commission is free to finetune the information system as needed without any need to postpone the application of the EUDR.
About ClientEarth
ClientEarth is a non-profit organisation that uses the law to create systemic change that protects the Earth for – and with – its inhabitants. We are tackling climate change, protecting nature and stopping pollution, with partners and citizens around the globe. We hold industry and governments to account and defend everyone’s right to a healthy world. ClientEarth teams in Europe, Asia and the USA work to shape, implement and enforce the law, to build a future for our planet in which people and nature can thrive together.