It was due to come into force on 31 December 2024, but has been postponed for a year. And for good reason: nobody was ready, whether economic operators or the authorities. So there is still time to get to grips with it and prepare for it. At the Cosmetic Valley’s 22nd Congress on Regulatory Issues - Fragrance & Cosmetics, held on 20 and 21 November 2024, Thomas Delille, of the law firm Squire Patton Boggs, presented a decoding of what he called “a veritable jewel of regulatory engineering that the European Union has created,” the “Deforestation-free” Regulation or EUDR.
At the outset, Regulation (EU) 995/2010, known as the ‘Wood Regulation’, aimed to address the problem of deforestation and the role of the European consumer in global deforestation. It established the principle of banning the marketing of wood products derived from deforestation and introduced a system of due diligence by operators.
The main principles of the EUDR
For Thomas Delille, Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 (European Union Deforestation Regulation - EUDR), adopted in May 2023, is more than just an evolution of this legislative framework: it is a revolution. Its scope has been extended far beyond timber, and it includes a codified due diligence system, obligations for operators and traders, and tighter controls.
The products involved
The text sets out a list of “relevant commodities”, which includes cattle, coffee, cocoa, soya, rubber, oil palm and wood. A positive list of products derived from these commodities are listed with Combined Nomenclature codes in Annex I of the Regulation, and they can be quite different from one commodity to another.
“To give you a concrete example, for cocoa or coffee, the derived products are finished cocoa- and coffee-based products. But in the case of oil palm, there are no soap-type finished products, but a …
