InfoSAWIT, JAKARTA – European Union (EU) that would regulate of deforestation in European Union on Deforestation-free Regulation (EUDR) and was firstly declared in the 2019 Commission Communication, has become the focus and controversy since it has been implemented on 29 June 2023. The regulation mandates the commitment to evaluate regulation and non-regulation in supply chain, escalate transparency, minimize deforestation risks about commodity imports to EU.
But EUDR discussion raised concern and protest from many countries and groups. Many criticized that the discussion process did not involve commodity producer countries which would be hit by the regulations. The commodities are wood, palm oil, coffee, cocoa, soybean, rubber, and beef cattle. Besides, the disparency with the principles, for instance, common but differentiated responsibilities and violation potential to the regulation in World Trade Organization (WTO) would be the concern as well.
As in the official statement from Coordinator Ministry in Economy that InfoSAWIT got, Friday (26/4/2024), Indonesia and Malaysia as two main palm oil producing countries, also protest EUDR. The two countries did the same mission to Brussel to reveal their concern and negative implications by publishing the regulation. As the follow up, EU agreed to establish joint task force (JTF) to discuss what producer countries would face.
In the JTF, there were five focuses stated, such as, smallholders should be involved in supply chain, the comparison between EUDR and national – scale standard, traceability tools, personal data protection. Besides, the Government of Indonesia is developing digital platform, such as, National Dashboard to reinforce smallholders’ supply chain and commodity industries that may get the impacts from EUDR.
On the other hand, United States of America also concerned. 27 senators objected the impacts from EUDR in pulp and paper industries in the country. They said that the terms and condition would be difficult to qualify, such as, traceability, geolocation, and even suggested US trade representatives to get communication with EU.
EU reacted that the main farmers’ association, Copa Cogeca claimed its inability to qualify EUDR in this very short.
The controversy about EUDR showed the complexity to solve deforestation issues but promote sustainability in many countries. EU just wants to protect the environment while preventing deforestation. The debate would still occure about the sustainability and accommodation for many parties. (T2)
