The disputed forest decision stirs up emotions: “It’s like shooting yourself in the foot”

On Tuesday, the EU Parliament rejected a proposal for new forest monitoring legislation. The Commission had proposed a regulation that would create an EU-wide forest monitoring system. The goal was to improve access to information about the condition of forests and disturbances, such as forest fires and pests. At the same time, information on forest biodiversity and forest use would have been obtained.

Parliament environment– and Agriculture committees already voted in September to reject the proposal, and the full House upheld the rejection after a vote on Tuesday.

MEPs who opposed the monitoring proposal considered that the proposal would increase the administrative burden and threaten the competence of member states in forest management.

The MEPs of the left-wing group, on the other hand, accuse the largest EPP party in the parliament of allying with the far-right and forgetting about environmental protection, when the motion was rejected in the parliament by votes of 370-264.

“It’s like shooting yourself in the foot,” commented the Danish leftist Per Clausen.

Next, the commission can decide whether to withdraw the forest monitoring proposal completely.

A disputed regulation

In the last few weeks, the commission has also been busy with another regulation on the use of forests.

It is about the disputed EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). It prohibits the import of certain products such as cocoa, coffee, wood and beef into the EU market if they cause permanent deforestation. In addition, according to the regulation, companies must accurately report on the origin of production.

Last month, the EU Environment Commissioner Jessica Roswall proposed postponing the deforestation regulation by a year due to IT problems that hinder the implementation of the regulation. According to the commission, the computer system used for reporting the origin of products has not been able to handle the massive number of notifications.

According to Tuesday’s information, the EU Commission no longer proposes the postponement of the regulation on combating deforestation for all companies, but only for small and micro operators that bring commodities covered by the regulation to the market.

In other words, the deforestation prevention regulation is not being postponed now, but the related regulations are supposed to enter into force at the end of this year, according to the original plan. The one-year postponement would only apply to small and micro operators who handle products such as cocoa, coffee, timber, palm oil, livestock and rubber. For these small operators, the entry into force of the regulation would be postponed until June 2027.

Small producers also benefit from a simplified declaration of duty of care, which proves that no forests have been cleared to produce goods that come to the EU market. In addition, downstream processors would not have the obligations of the regulation.

Critics have accused the original regulation of imposing undue red tape on European companies.

According to Pellervo’s economic research (PTT), the commission’s original deforestation regulation could have cost Finnish companies up to hundreds of millions of euros. The biggest costs would be for companies that use wood and the trade sector.

In order for the Commission’s proposal from Tuesday to enter into force, it still needs the approval of the Council of EU countries and MEPs. However, they can still make changes to the Commission’s proposals.

For example, MTK, which represents Finnish forest owners, has hoped that the disputed regulation could still be canceled completely.

Pacing related to the forest canopy regulation is not suitable for increasing confidence Ursula von der Leyenin to the activities of the commission led by him.