EU: 'We call on MEPs and Member States to uphold the EUDR as previously agreed' (WWF/Greenpeace)

"The timing of the Commission's proposal to 'simplify' the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), just weeks before COP30, calls into question the EU’s credibility as a global leader on environmental protection and stalls momentum towards deforestation-free supply chains’, declared WWF, in Brussels on 21/10/2025.

Regarding the Commission's simplification proposal to exempt SME's from low-risk countries worldwide from due diligences in the EUDR framework: "Many of these SMEs are not actually small, and most European countries are considered low risk, so these exemptions would affect a large number of operators and significantly increase the risk of deforestation and illegality in supply chains. It seems that the Commission is responding to requests from forest owners to be exempted from the obligation.
Weakening the law now only punishes companies that have already invested in compliance and sustainability, including those that have invested to help others comply with the previous version of the EUDR. We have seen Indonesian SMEs writing to the Commission to say: 'Don't delay the EUDR…