EUDR: Anatomy of a delayed announcement

When the European anti-deforestation regulation fell victim to its own successive postponements

On December 17, 2025, The European Parliament voted 405 to 242 in favor. which, for keen observers of European green policies, already seemed a formality: the postponement for the second time of EU Regulation on Deforestation (EUDR). Large operators will now have until December 30, 2026, to comply, while smaller ones will benefit from an even later deadline—June 30, 2027.

For those less familiar with the EUDR saga, this timeline is worth reconstructing: adopted in April 2023 with the aim of combating climate change by ensuring that products traded in the EU—wood, cocoa, coffee, soy, palm oil, rubber, and beef products—do not originate from deforested land, the regulation was due to enter into force on December 30, 2024. In December 2024, The first postponement moved it to December 30, 2025.. Now, at the end of 2025, the calendar has shifted again—to December 30, 2026.

Official reasons: technical, always technical

The reason given for this new postponement seems familiar to the point of becoming almost ritualistic: the European Union's IT system is not ready to handle the volume of due diligence declarations required. Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall explained in September 2025 that the centralized platform through which operators must prove the origin of their products “is not ready to handle the estimated volumes.”.

On the surface, the argument is not without logic. But for those who have closely followed the evolution of the EUDR, the technical reason masks a much more complex reality. Anke Schulmeister-Oldenhove of WWF summed up this frustration: “If this technical problem is real, it shows not only incompetence, but also a lack of political will to invest in timely implementation.”

The paradox of preparation: who invested and who waited

What makes this postponement even more ironic is that it comes at a time when many large companies—those that took the regulation seriously from the outset—have invested heavily in compliance systems. They have warned that the delay will create new uncertainties for companies and unfairly penalize those that have already invested in systems to comply with the new regulations.

“Many companies spent most of 2024 and 2025 preparing for the end-of-2025 deadline—developing data management platforms, renegotiating contracts with suppliers, and mapping high-risk points of origin,” note analysts at legal consulting firm Bergeson & Campbell. “A last-minute delay risks exhausting internal teams that must continue to support these efforts without regulatory clarity.”

It is a paradox that might seem comical if it were not so serious: companies that are ready are calling for the law to be enforced, while legislators continue to delay. A coalition of companies and NGOs in the food, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, and timber sectors recently argued that “renewed uncertainty would generate substantial sunk costs” for businesses that have already invested heavily in EUDR compliance systems and would “reward less prepared actors.”

Simplifications that change the game – for better or worse

Along with the postponement, the revision of the EUDR brings simplifications that, for many operators in the timber industry, represent a real and necessary relief:

Micro and small primary operators – including private forest owners and companies with fewer than 50 employees – will only have to submit a single simplified declaration. For the European forestry sector, where many owners have small areas of forest, this means the removal of a considerable administrative burden. In Romania, where private forest ownership is extremely fragmented, the measure has a direct positive impact.

Traceability within the EU becomes simpler: only operators placing the relevant product on the EU market for the first time will be responsible for submitting full due diligence statements. For wood processing mills, this means they will no longer have to submit statements for each processing stage – a simplification that reflects the operational reality of the industry.

Geolocation: Micro and small producers can replace precise GPS coordinates (polygons) with postal addresses, as long as these clearly correspond to the geographical location. For a forest owner who exploits 10 hectares, the difference between providing GPS coordinates for each parcel and providing a postal address is significant.

Printed products – books, newspapers, printed images – are completely excluded from the scope, thus recognizing the limited risk of deforestation associated with them.

PEFC Romania, a forest certification organization, sums up this more optimistic outlook: “You have time. An extra year. You have clearer rules. You have simpler procedures. Forest certification remains one of the most effective solutions for compliance, traceability, and credibility in the market.”

And yet, the question remains: if the system could be simplified so much, why only now? If micro-producers needed a special regime, why was this discovered only now, at the second postponement?

Gray areas that remain gray

For the wood industry, simplifications solve some problems but create new uncertainties. “In the case of the wood industry, it is still unclear how entities that process purchased wood, producing products with different CN codes, will be treated in the supply chain,” notes the Polish trade publication. drewno.pl. According to current records and explanations, changing the CN code means changing the role and scope of obligations for a specific batch of products and transaction.“

It is precisely this type of ambiguity that makes operators who WANT to comply unsure of how to do so. Is a furniture manufacturer who buys timber (one CN code) and produces chairs (another CN code) a “primary operator” or a “downstream operator”? The answer determines the entire architecture of its compliance obligations.

The European Commission has been tasked with presenting an impact and administrative burden assessment report by April 30, 2026—eight months before the deadline for large operators. The report “should indicate possible ways to address the issues identified, including through technical guidance, IT system improvements, as well as delegated or implementing acts” and “where appropriate, should be accompanied by a legislative proposal.”

In other words, even before the regulation comes into force, the groundwork is already being laid for a possible new revision.

Two narratives, same uncertainty

For environmental NGOs, this series of delays and simplifications represents an unacceptable erosion of an essential tool for protecting forests. Nicole Polsterer of the NGO Fern calls the decision “an insult to all those who have worked hard to implement traceability systems.” Stientje van Veldhoven of the World Resources Institute is even more direct: “We are losing 18 football fields of forest every minute. It is deeply saddening to see the EU watering down and delaying its anti-deforestation law – just when forests need strong and predictable rules.”

For the European timber industry – particularly the forestry sector, which already operates under strict sustainable management regimes – the simplifications are welcomed with pragmatic relief, tempered by frustration that it took two postponements to arrive at rules that correspond to operational reality. In Germany and Poland, forestry associations have welcomed the clarifications, pointing out that forest certification (FSC, PEFC) already provides the necessary traceability mechanisms.

Both perspectives are legitimate. Both reflect a frustrating reality: a regulation designed to transform the global timber market has come to be perceived as either too weak (by environmentalists) or too complicated and incoherent (by industry).

The erosion of a vision

FAO estimates that 420 million hectares of forest – an area larger than the EU – were lost to deforestation between 1990 and 2020, and EU consumption is responsible for approximately 10% of global deforestation. The initial impact assessment estimated that, once implemented, the EUDR would reduce deforestation driven by EU consumption by 29% by 2030, save at least 72,000 hectares of forest each year, and prevent a minimum of 32 million metric tons of CO₂ emissions annually.

These remain vital objectives. But between the vision of 2023 and the reality of 2025, a gray area has emerged where delays become the norm, simplifications are negotiated every year, and expectations—both of those who want stricter protection and those who demand operational clarity—are tempered.

When Christine Schneider (EPP, DE), the Parliament's rapporteur, declares that “the heart of the EU regulation on deforestation remains intact,” reactions are polarized: environmentalists hear an excuse for dilution, while industry hears an assurance that their compliance efforts will not be in vain. Both audiences listen with the skepticism of those who have heard similar promises before.

2026: Finish line or starting point?

So, what will the 2026 postponement bring? For operators in the timber industry who have already structured their compliance systems—especially those certified by FSC or PEFC—the extra time provides an opportunity to test and refine procedures under less pressing conditions. For small forest owners, simplifications can make the difference between giving up logging and continuing within a clear legal framework.

But if the trajectory of recent years teaches us anything, it is that no one is counting on the finality of the December 30, 2026, date. The April 2026 report will almost certainly identify new “problems” and recommend new “adjustments.” And when 2026 brings, perhaps, a new round of “technical concerns” and “necessary simplifications,” reactions will once again be polarized but predictable.

The EUDR remains, in theory, essential legislation. The world's forests continue to disappear. IT systems will eventually be improved. Simplifications will hopefully make the regulation more workable. But what has been irretrievably eroded is something more intangible: the belief that the EU can legislate with vision and consistently execute a project that will effectively change the paradigm of global wood consumption.

In 2023, the EUDR seemed like a visionary project. In 2025, after two postponements and multiple simplifications, it seems more like a document under constant review, a prisoner of its own unclear ambitions and inconsistent execution.

The timber industry—the one that was supposed to be transformed by this regulation—remains in an ambiguous position: ready to comply with rules that continue to change, armed with certifications and traceability systems, waiting for clarity in a legislative landscape that, paradoxically, becomes more unclear with each “simplification.”.

Note: The text of the revised regulation must be formally approved by the Council and published in the Official Journal of the EU before the end of 2025 for the changes to take effect. The EUTR (EU Timber Regulation) will remain valid until December 30, 2026, with special provisions for timber produced before June 29, 2023.