Opinion

European Council relaxes proposal that vetoes imports linked to deforestation

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The European Union’s proposal to ensure that its imports are not linked to deforestation has been softened in a new version, which reduces importers’ obligations, the areas that must be traced and the number of products to be inspected.

The proposal being debated by the bloc consists of forcing importing companies to carry out audits that trace the origin of the products and guarantee that they do not come from areas of illegal deforestation. The rule applies to six commodities and their derivatives: palm oil, beef, wood, coffee, cocoa and soy.

The new text, presented on Tuesday (28) by the European Council, has received criticism from environmental organizations, who see it as a step backwards from the version presented in November by the European Commission.

When proposing how companies should trace the origin of livestock, the European Council’s text asks for the identification of only a geographical coordinate for land with less than ten hectares instead of a perimeter, which would make it possible to identify a plot of land.

In practice, information from a geographic coordinate point would make tracking unfeasible, as it is not compatible with the process of identifying deforestation. Furthermore, one of the crucial challenges for identifying deforestation linked to beef farming is precisely the fact that the process may involve more than one farm.

The transport of cattle from illegally deforested areas to farms that operate legally is called “cattle washing” and limits the guarantee given today by large companies in the sector, which still find it difficult to monitor their indirect suppliers.

The Council’s proposal also explicitly mentions that importing companies “are not obliged to obtain location information on the origin of soy or palm oil used to feed livestock”.

“If the reason for the setback came from a lobby of Brazilian exporters, this is a shot in the foot, since the recent increase in deforestation and the resulting drought have greatly reduced the productivity of Brazilian rural properties”, says the director of the consultancy Sustainable Inclusive Solutions, Luciane Moessa.

Another setback appears in the change in the date from which imports must be free of deforestation: it went from December 2020, in the Commission’s proposal, to December 2021, in the Council’s version. In Brazil, the Forest Code provides for punishment for deforestation carried out since 2008.

The deadline for importers to adapt to the measures is also increased from 12 to 18 months in the Council’s proposal. The agency also reduced the proportion of products that must be checked by importers, from 15% to 5% in areas of high risk of deforestation and reaching zero in areas of low risk.

“This introduces a dangerous loophole, by allowing operators to fraudulently claim that their products originate from low-risk areas, in order to avoid scrutiny,” reads a document sent by European NGOs to European parliamentarians and obtained by Sheet.

The organizations hope is that the text presented by Parliament will counteract the changes suggested by the Council. The negotiation between the two bodies of the European Union should result in the text that will go to the vote in Parliament on 12 September.

“The European Parliament’s position will likely strengthen the Commission’s proposal, while Member States in their recent agreement are adhering, on most issues, to the original proposal,” he told Sheet MEP Anna Cavazzini, vice-president of the European Parliament delegation in Brazil and rapporteur of the opinion on deforestation legislation in the internal market commission.

“I think the legislation will be a game changer and the vertiginous deforestation rates in Brazil show that it is highly necessary”, concludes Cavazzini.

Most of the European Parliament committees have already voted on the proposal and the environment committee, which is considered the main one for the issue, must vote on its resolution between the 11th and 12th of July.

The text of the European Council also confirms a proposal by the European Commission that reduces the scope of action of the new standard to forest ecosystems only, ignoring deforestation in other biomes – such as, in the Brazilian case, the cerrado and the wetland.

“The EU proposal already had serious limitations”, assesses Moessa, citing that soy, for example, is more concentrated in the Cerrado than in the Amazon. “Soybeans are a very important commodity in the export basket, much more than beef, of which only 20% is exported,” she says.

The proposal provides for a new assessment, two years from now, on the need and feasibility of extending the scope to other commodities and ecosystems.

“Setbacks and the weakening of the control systems in this regulation are unacceptable. It is time to put pressure on the European Parliament to correct these gaps”, says Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory.

“Member States have strongly emphasized the need to identify a compromise that strikes the right balance between ambition and realism”, states the European Council in the introduction to the proposal.

In a press release, the body states that the approach avoids duplication of obligations and reduces the administrative burden for operators and Member State authorities.

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