Euroviews. Von der Leyen should focus on implementation of EU's deforestation law, not its rollback

These last few months have been fraught with pushback against the EU’s bold new anti-deforestation regulation. Pressure has come from within the EU, egged on by the Austrian agriculture minister, and from external trading partners.

Finally, on 12 September, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz piled on by urging delaying enforcement for six months.

This is a deplorable abdication of leadership in the face of a climate emergency and Europe’s responsibility to do its part. The need for the deforestation law is as pressing as ever.

The EU’s Deforestation-Free Products Regulation (EUDR) requires EU companies to ensure that commodities they export or import have been produced in conditions that respect environmental laws and laws on land use rights, and that were farmed on land that was not deforested after 2020.

In 2023, the world lost the equivalent of almost 10 soccer fields of climate-critical forest per minute. The cause is clear: commercial-scale agriculture is by far the single largest driver of deforestation worldwide.

The EU’s deforestation-tainted consumption of the seven commodities targeted by the EUDR –cattle, coffee, cocoa, palm oil, rubber, soy, and wood– is second only to China’s.

And it’s not just about forests.

The rights of the people impacted by the supply chains of products consumed by Europeans are frequently violated: whether it is trafficked children illegally laboring in cocoa plantations, Indigenous peoples forcibly displaced by logging companies, or workers in oil palm plantations sickened with the pesticides they spray.

The EUDR addresses these issues by requiring stringent due diligence that sheds light on long supply chains that often obscure human rights violations. Voluntary pledges cannot substitute