The European Parliament decided today to once again postpone the entry into force of the anti-deforestation regulations until December 30, 2026 for the import of certain raw materials, such as beef or soy, which could affect Argentine exports to said bloc.
Likewise, MEPs introduced concrete changes that simplify requirements to “facilitate the application of European deforestation regulations to companies, global actors, Member States and third countries,” the Parliament statement indicated.
According to the text approved with 402 votes in favor, 250 against and 8 abstentions“companies will have an additional year to comply with new European regulations against deforestation.”
Thus, “the large operators and merchants will have to respect the obligations of the legislation from the December 30, 2026while the smaller companies (less than fifty employees and an annual turnover of less than ten million euros) must do so from the June 30, 2027”.
“The new deadlines try to guarantee a smooth adaptation and reinforcement of the computer system that operators, merchants and their representatives use to make electronic due diligence declarations,” they argued from Europe.
This is a central point, since just over a month ago, the European Commission (EC) had highlighted the difficulties presented by the load of information for the system they had developed, explaining that “the new projections on the number of operations and interactions planned between economic operators (…) is much higher than expected.”
Argentine agriculture strongly criticized the decision of the European Union to promote this regulation and, above all, the classification of our country as standard deforestation riskwhich implies greater demands, added to those that any of the two products exported by Argentina (soybeans and meat) come from farms that have not been deforested since 2020 to date.
One of the changes introduced by MEPs is that “the obligation to submit a due diligence declaration should fall on companies that introduce a product for the first time on the EU market, and not on the operators and merchants who subsequently market it”, in addition to that “the changes in the regulation also will reduce obligations for smaller companieswho will only have to present a single simplified declaration.”
Now, Parliament must begin the negotiations with member states on the final formulation of the law, which “must be approved by both Parliament and the Council and published in the Official Journal of the EU before the end of 2025, so that the extra year of margin can come into force.”