"Top deforestation drivers could dodge ‘high risk’ tag under EU benchmarking," 3 October 2024

Countries responsible for much of global deforestation may avoid being labelled "high risk" under the EU’s new anti-deforestation regulation (EUDR), according to documents released... by the European Commission.

The regulation seeks to ban agricultural commodities linked to deforestation—such as cocoa, coffee, livestock, soy, palm oil, timber, and rubber—from the EU market, along with derived products like chocolate, furniture, and leather goods.

As part of the new rules, the Commission was required to classify countries as high, standard, or low risk based on their deforestation levels...

However, some of the world’s largest producers of these commodities may escape the "high risk" category. The methodology suggests that countries sanctioned by the UN Security Council or the EU... will be classified as high risk...

Fanny Gauttier, public affairs lead at the Rainforest Alliance, criticised this as a "toned-down" interpretation designed to ease concerns from producing countries, warning it could undermine the credibility of the assessment...

The Commission also revealed that most countries will likely be categorized as low risk, and stresses that the priority would be to engage with those in the "standard" category - marking a shift from the regulation’s original focus on high-risk countries. Countries labelled as "standard" will receive tailored approaches depending on whether they fall at the lower or higher end of the risk level - creating two “subcategories” of sorts...