By Leonie Cater
Copyright politico
Turn it off and on again
The Commission, for its part, on Tuesday stressed the importance of the EU’s anti-deforestation push and cited an issue with the IT system that deals with the submission of businesses’ due diligence statements as the rationale for postponing. It wouldn’t be able to handle all the notifications coming from economic operators, said a Commission official.
“This is a first of a kind legislation in terms of the scope and the sophistication of the provisions in the EUDR,” said the official. “As always, when you have no blueprint, you have a great number of uncertainties in the design of the implementation mechanisms, and this is particularly true when it comes to IT systems.”
Business groups have long complained about the impracticality of the EU’s system for proving they’re compliant.
But Green groups and MEPs are having none of it. “This would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic,” said ClientEarth lawyer Michael Rice in a press statement. “The Commission is making a fool of itself by using its own inadequate IT system as an excuse to delay the world’s most important forest law for a second time in 12 months.”
The Commission also had to bat away accusations of caving to pressure from upset trade partners like the United States and major palm oil exporter Indonesia.
In a joint statement issued by the EU and the U.S. last month, formalizing their tariff truce, the EU made a vague promise to address U.S. concerns regarding the EU’s deforestation law.
