EU will not delay adoption of law against deforestation

by Ange Aboa

OFFOUMPO, Ivory Coast, April 8 (Reuters) – The European Union does not plan to delay a new law against the import of products linked to deforestation, its environment commissioner said, although some governments have urged Brussels to postpone this historic reform.

The new EU law, which is expected to come into force at the end of 2024, will require companies to prove that their products have not been grown on deforested land.

“We are currently working to ensure that the legislation is operational from the beginning of the year (2025),” Virginijus Sinkevicius, EU Environment Commissioner, told Reuters during a visit to a production cooperative of cocoa in Ivory Coast last Sunday.

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In March, around twenty countries out of the 27 members of the European Union asked Brussels to delay the entry into force of the law and to exempt producers from countries that present a low risk of deforestation.

The Commission will respond to countries’ concerns but the deforestation policy was adopted at the end of 2022 and producers and governments have had almost two years to prepare, added Virginijus Sinkevicius.

For countries outside the EU, notably Ivory Coast and Ghana, the world’s leading cocoa producers, the challenge is smooth access to the main market, at a time when prices of the raw material have already reached unparalleled heights.

The European commissioner also said the EU would not fully cover the costs of bringing production systems into compliance. (Reporting Ange Aboa, written by Portia Crowe and Alessandra Prentice; French version Alban Kacher, edited by Kate Entringer)