EUDR re-engineered: beyond the postponement

EUDR: Premise

The European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) – relating to the making available on the Union market and export from the Union of certain commodities and products associated with deforestation and forest degradation – represents a legislative intervention of historic scope within the framework of European environmental policies.

Regulated products may be placed on the European Union market only if:

• ‘deforestation-free‘ (i.e., the agricultural and livestock commodities were produced on land not subject to deforestation after 31 December 2020);

• produced legally, in compliance with the legislation of the country of production;

• accompanied by a due diligence statement. (EUDR, Article 3).

Scope

EUDR applies to seven commodities considered at high risk of deforestation: cattle (live animals, carcasses and derived products including hides and skins), cocoa (whole and crushed beans, paste, powder and butter), coffee, rubber, soya (beans, flours, oils, cakes), palm oil (including palm oil and palm kernel oil and their fractions even if refined, cakes, residues, pure glycerol, alcohols and acids) and wood. Beyond the commodities, the legislation covers a wide range of derived products, including chocolate, meat preparations and preserves, but also printed paper, furniture, tyres, etc. (EUDR, Annex I). Wooden, paper or cellulose packaging is also subject to the legislation when sold as goods in their own right and not used to contain transported goods.

Obligated parties

The EUDR regulation involves all operators who import or trade in the EU the products covered by the legislation and their derivatives, even if established exclusively on European territory. In particular:

• ‘operators‘, understood as natural or legal persons who, in the course of a commercial activity, place regulated products on the EU market for the first time or export them, even free of charge;

• ‘traders‘, that is to say all those (natural or legal persons) who make regulated products available on the European market, at a stage of the supply chain therefore subsequent to and distinct from that of the operator.

Responsibility of downstream operators, from nightmare to reason

The principal innovation introduced by the EUDR reform is the liberation of downstream operators (‘traders’) from the nightmare of having to apply the same due diligence criteria already imposed on importers (‘operators’). Such a burden was objectively unjustified and unreasonable, precisely because due diligence was already prescribed at the stage of importation into the EU of regulated products borne by operators, the importers precisely, able to collect the documentation and arrange the necessary verifications.

Responsibility of operators (importers)

The original text of EUDR equated non-SME traders with importers (non-SME operators), subjecting them to the same obligations described in Article 4 of the regulation. That is to say:

• submission of the due diligence statement referred to in Article 8 through the information system referred to in Article 33 of EUDR;

• analysis of the truthfulness of the documentation provided;

• verification that the risk of non-compliance of products with the requirements referred to in Article 3 is negligible or nil; (1)

• exercise of due diligence in conformity with the criteria established in Article 8;

• retention of a copy of the due diligence statement for a period of five years;

• immediate notification to the competent authorities of the Member State where the placing on the market occurred, as well as to the traders to whom the product concerned was supplied, in case of new information indicating the risk of non-compliance;

• assistance to the supervisory authorities, with guarantee of access to premises and making available of documentation and records;

• communication to operators and traders downstream of the supply chain of the information necessary to demonstrate: i) that due diligence has been exercised ii) that the risk identified is negligible or nil iii) the reference numbers of the due diligence statements associated with the products;

• review of the due diligence system at least once a year, keeping a record of any updates for the following five years;

• preparation of an annual report on one’s own due diligence system, offering the widest possible dissemination, including on the web.

Paradoxically, an enterprise based in the EU producing chocolate would have had to assume all the burdens and costs mentioned above, even though the cocoa used as an ingredient had already been placed on the EU market and the due diligence requirements had already been fulfilled by the importer.

Responsibility of downstream operators

The EUDR reform first introduces the definition of ‘downstream operator‘, understood as ‘any natural or legal person who, in the course of a commercial activity, places on the market or exports relevant products made using relevant products, all of which are covered by a due diligence statement or by a simplified declaration‘. The ‘trader‘ is in turn defined as ‘any person in the supply chain other than the operator or downstream operator who, in the course of a commercial activity, makes relevant products available on the market‘.

The downstream operator and the trader, following the reform:

• place or make available on the market or export relevant products only if they are in possession of information relating to: a) name, registered trade name or registered trade mark, postal and e-mail address, and if available also the web address, of the operators, downstream operators or traders who have supplied them with the relevant products, as well as – only in the case that their supplier is an operator – the reference numbers of the due diligence statements or the identifiers of the statements associated with such products; b) the name, registered trade name or registered trade mark, postal address, e-mail address and, if available, the web address of the downstream operators or traders to whom they have supplied the relevant products;

• retain the aforementioned information for at least five years from the date of placing or making available on the market or export and provide it upon request to the competent authorities;

• register in the information system referred to in Article 33 of EUDR before placing or making available on the market or exporting relevant products, with the exclusion of SMEs;

• where they ‘obtain or are made aware of relevant new information, including substantiated concerns, indicating that a relevant product that they have placed or made available on the market is at risk of not complying with this Regulation shall immediately inform the competent authorities of the Member States in which they placed or made available on the market the relevant product as well as downstream operators and traders to whom they supplied the relevant product. In the case of exports, downstream operators shall inform the competent authority of the Member State which is the country of production‘;

• ‘if non-SME downstream operators and non-SME traders obtain or are made aware of relevant information indicating that a relevant product is not in compliance with the requirements set out in this Regulation, prior to placing or making available on the market or exporting relevant products, they shall immediately inform the competent authorities of the Member States in which they intend to place or make available on the market or from which they intend to export those relevant products. In the case of substantiated concerns, they shall verify that due diligence was exercised and that no or only a negligible risk was found. They shall not place or make available on the market or export relevant products unless the verification demonstrates no or only a negligible risk of non-compliance’;

• offer the competent authorities all necessary assistance to facilitate the execution of checks pursuant to Article 19, including access to premises and making available of documentation and records.

Small and micro primary operators

The reform also introduces a simplified due diligence regime for micro and small primary operators, i.e., natural persons or small and micro enterprises (within the meaning of Directive 2013/34/EU), regardless of their legal form, who are established in a country classified as low risk (pursuant to Article 29 of EUDR) and who, in the course of a commercial activity, place on the market or export relevant products that the operator themselves has cultivated, harvested, obtained or reared on the plots or, in the case of cattle, in the establishments in question, located in said country.

Simplification is available also to operators who exceed the limits of at least two of the three criteria set out in Article 3 of Directive 2013/34/EU (balance sheet total: EUR 450,000; net turnover: EUR 900,000; average number of employees during the financial year: 10) but who can demonstrate that the parts of their balance sheet total, net turnover and average number of employees during the financial year, related to the relevant commodities and the relevant products, do not exceed the limits of at least two of three of those criteria.

The micro or small primary operators thus qualified:

• submit a one-time simplified declaration, in the information system referred to in Article 33, providing the information referred to in Annex III to Regulation (EU) 2025/2650, before placing relevant products on the market or exporting them; they thus receive a declaration identifier;

• may replace geolocation with the postal address of all plots of land or the postal address of the establishment from which the relevant commodities that the relevant product contains, or has been made using, were produced.

Transitional period

The application of EUDR is postponed to 30 December 2026, with a further postponement to 30 June 2027 for natural persons or microenterprises or small enterprises established as such by 31 December 2024. Our FARE (Food and Agriculture Requirements) team is available to operators who intend to optimise the application of the requirements imposed by EUDR.

Dario Dongo

Notes

(1) Where the risk identified is nil, it is sufficient for the operator to make available to the competent authority, upon request, the relevant documentation attesting to a negligible risk of circumvention of the regulation or of commingling with products of unknown origin or having origin in countries or areas of countries at high risk or at standard risk (Simplified due diligence statement, EUDR, Article 13, paragraph 1).

References

• Regulation (EU) 2025/2650 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 December 2025 amending Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 as regards certain obligations of operators and traders. http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2025/2650/oj

• Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 May 2023 on the making available on the Union market and the export from the Union of certain commodities and products associated with deforestation and forest degradation and repealing Regulation (EU) No 995/2010. Consolidated text: 26/12/2024 http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2023/1115/2024-12-26