Germany asks EU to postpone anti-deforestation law. September 15, 2024

Germany asks to postpone deforestation law

AFP - Agence France Presse

Germany asks EU to postpone anti-deforestation law.

Germany said Friday it has asked the European Union to postpone a law banning the import of products linked to deforestation after Chancellor Olaf Scholz stepped up criticism of the regulations.

The new rules, currently set to come into force at the end of December, will ban a wide range of products - from coffee, cocoa, and cattle to soy, timber, palm oil, printing paper, and rubber - if they are produced using land that has been deforested after December 2020.

EU imports are responsible for 16% of global deforestation, according to WWF data.

Agriculture Minister Cem Ozdemir said on Friday that he had asked the EU, on behalf of the German government, to postpone the start of the new rules “by half a year”, to July 1, 2025.

“Companies need enough time to prepare,” he said.

On Thursday, Scholz told the German Association of Digital Publishers and Newspaper Editors (BDZV): “The regulations must be practicable.”

He said he had raised the issue with the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and pressed “for the regulation to be suspended until the open questions raised - by the BDZV, among others - have been clarified”.

The BDZV called the new regulations “unworkable” and claimed that they would create a “drastic additional bureaucratic burden for companies”.

“Otherwise, supply chains risk breaking down at the end of the year, to the detriment of the German and European economies, small farmers in third countries, and consumers,” Ozdemir said in a statement.

This week, Brazil also asked the 27-nation bloc to suspend the application of the rules, which, according to you, are “punitive”.

This was in addition to complaints from the United States, other Latin American countries, and nations in Asia and Africa, who say that the law will place an administrative burden on farmers and the forestry sector.

The burden of verifying supply chains falls on EU importers.

Forests absorb carbon and are a vital ally in the fight against climate change, but they are being devastated by deforestation.

Forest areas are also essential for the survival of endangered plants and animals, such as orangutans and lowland gorillas.

In the last century, the Amazon rainforest, which covers almost 40% of South America, has lost around 20% of its area to deforestation, due to the advance of agriculture and livestock farming, logging and mining, and urban sprawl.

Within the EU itself, the agriculture ministers of around 20 member states - led by Austria and Finland - complained in April about the law that created bureaucratic obstacles for the agricultural sector, saying it could harm investment and distort competition.

Under the new rules, companies that import the goods in question into the EU will be responsible for tracing their supply chains - using geolocation and satellite data - to prove that the products did not originate from areas subject to deforestation.

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