The European Parliament voted to weaken and postpone for one year the regulation to restrict the import of products from deforested land into Europe. This is a further blow to the Green Deal.
On Wednesday 26 November in Strasbourg, MEPs voted by 402 votes to 250 to significantly reduce the scope of the text, which aims to ban the marketing in Europe of products such as palm oil, cocoa, coffee, soya and wood from deforested land after 2020. Conservatives from the European People’s Party (EPP) and parties to its right, including France’s National Grouping, Italy’s Fratelli d’Italia party, Hungary’s Fidesz and Germany’s AfD, agreed to this…
While these same countries ask the European Union (EU) to provide companies with a stable legislative environment, “this creates maximum uncertainty,” argues German MEP (SPD) Delara Burkhardt. “This instability weakens companies and countries,” such as Vietnam, Argentina and Thailand, which were ready to cooperate, “and weakens one of the EU’s key instruments against deforestation, right after COP30; it is a disgrace,” adds her Green Party colleague, Marie Toussaint.
The anti-deforestation legislation, hailed as revolutionary by environmental organisations, has been strongly criticised from the start by some countries, such as Brazil, the United States and, within the EU, Germany, eager to protect their foresters. Several large companies, including Nestlé, Danone and Ferrero, had however prepared themselves and were urging Brussels to definitively implement it…
The Commission, citing IT problems, created the conditions for its dismantling and decided to amend it and then resubmit it to the Member States and Parliament this autumn. Not surprisingly, the latter took the opportunity to go further than proposed.
The EPP, the Social Democrats (S&D) and the Renew Liberals, who voted for the appointment of the current Commission and on whom its president, Ursula von der Leyen, theoretically relies to implement her programme, failed to reach an agreement. The conservatives therefore turned to the extreme right, with whom they share a desire for deregulation.
Under deforestation to raise cattle to produce meat, in Brazil
