MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

With elections in June, EU plans to delay rules on imports from deforested areas and freeze the Green Deal

Export producing countries of coffee, cocoa, palm oil, rubber, beef, complained bitterly about the implementation of the deforestation bill on imports

Following serious and combined complaints from Latin American, Asian and African countries, the European Union is prepared to delay the rules on exports from deforestation areas, it was reported in Brussels.

Rules to be applied beginning December classifying countries into low, standard and high risk import areas are to be delayed to give potentially affected countries more time to adapt to the anti deforestation regulations approved by the EU parliament.

“The rules can be burdensome, unfair and scare off investors,” argued EU trade partners. While Brussels EU officials admitted, “we will simply not classify which means everywhere will be medium risk — we need more time to get the system in place,” adding that ”we have had a lot of complaints from partners. Basically the delay means no country will have an advantage over another.”

The law, part of the EU’s flagship Green Deal, was passed last year and aims to reduce EU consumers’ role in cutting down woodland by barring imports including coffee, cocoa, palm oil, rubber, beef that have been grown in deforested areas from being sold in the bloc.

The regulation prompted fury and rejection from several developing nations that accused the EU of forcing its green standards on to others. Major palm oil producing countries including Indonesia and Malaysia raised “multiple concerns” over the rules in a letter to the European Commission in September.

“The legislation disregards local circumstances and capabilities, national legislation and certification mechanisms of developing producer countries, [as well as] their efforts to fight deforestation and multilateral commitments, including the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities,” it said.

Besides elections for the renewal of the European Parliament are taking place next 6/9 June and the Green Deal worked out by bureaucrats in Brussels, has EU farmers in most countries up in arms with repeated city and street demonstrations, even unloading manure in Brussels offices. One of the victims of the EU farmers turmoil has been promises by the French and Irish governments to forget about a two decades expected free trade agreement between Mercosur countries and the European Union.