The European Commission provided further simplifications and reducing the administrative burden to facilitate the implementation of the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). New guidance documents have been published in view of the regulation's entry into application at the end of this year for member states, operators and traders. With these clarifications and simplifications, the Commission is also replying to feedback from its international partners.

The updated guidance and Frequently Asked Questions will provide companies, EU member states' authorities and partner countries with additional simplified measures and clarifications on how to demonstrate that their products are deforestation-free. Both documents reflect the input from member states, partner countries, businesses, and industry. This will also guarantee harmonized implementation of the law across the EU.

The simplifications introduced will be further complemented by a Delegated Act, published for public consultation. The Act provides further clarifications and simplifications on the scope of EUDR, addressing stakeholders' requests for guidance on specific categories of products. This will also avoid unnecessary administrative costs for economic operators and authorities.

Finally, the Commission is currently finalizing the country benchmarking system through an Implementing Act. It will be adopted no later than June 30, 2025 following discussions with member states.

Together, all these measures will lead to a currently estimated 30% reduction of administrative costs and burden for companies. This will ensure a simple, fair and cost-efficient implementation of this key piece of legislation. The EUDR has already led to positive developments and action on the ground to fight deforestation, climate change and biodiversity loss.

Key simplification measures

With these new guidance documents, the Commission has introduced a number of simplification measures:

• Large companies can reuse existing due diligence statements when goods, previously on the EU market, are reimported. This means that less information needs to be submitted in the IT system.
• An authorized representative can now submit a due diligence statement on behalf of members of company groups.
• Companies will be allowed to submit due diligence statements annually instead of for every shipment or batch placed on the EU market.
• Clarification of “ascertaining” that due diligence has been carried out, so that large companies downstream benefit from simplified obligations (a minimal legal obligation of collecting reference numbers of Due Diligence Statement (DDS) from their suppliers and using those references for their own DDS submissions now applies).

All the updated measures are expected to significantly reduce the number of due diligence statements that companies need to file, in response to key industry demands. The goal of these simplifications for due diligence statements is to ensure easy and efficient data entry for all users.

“We are committed to implementing EU rules on deforestation in a spirit of close partnership, transparency, and open dialogue. Our aim is to reduce the administrative burden for companies while preserving the goals of the regulation. We will continue to work very closely with all stakeholders to ensure that our rules deliver on reducing global deforestation and forest degradation in the least burdensome way for companies,” said Jessika Roswall, Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy, in a press release.