On 17 December 2025, the European Parliament voted to adopt targeted changes to the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), including a one year delay to its start date.  While we await Council’s endorsement of the text, Fairtrade International calls for a clear path forward and rejects any further weakening of the legislation’s environmental standards

The vote means that now large operators have until 30 December 2026 and micro and small operators have until 30 June 2027 to begin complying with the regulation.

While the possibility of delay had injected uncertainty into international markets since the European Commission’s first announcement in September, the members of the European Parliament also supported a simplification review clause that will allow for the Commission to an impact assessment of the EUDR by 30 April 2026.    

Fairtrade opposes any modification that waters down the EUDR and its commitment to protect forests. At the same time, we have seen first-hand the regulation’s complexity when it comes to smallholder farmer compliance, and therefore this is not a moment to pause but rather a small window for redoubled efforts and action.

With the one-year delay and increased lead time prior to the EUDR coming into force, the European Union must still find ways to adequately support many of the smallholder farmers outside of the EU, in particular the millions who are not from low-risk countries and who do not sell directly on the EU market or have not received already adequate support from either their government or from supply chain partners.

Many producers need financial, technical, and other interventions to allow them to take ownership of the objectives of the EUDR. Fairtrade producer networks will continue to provide hands-on support to coffee and cocoa cooperatives when it comes to collecting, managing, and submitting the regulation’s required data, but more funding is needed to support this work. 

Regardless of the EUDR timeline, Fairtrade is continuing to move forward with the same momentum because protecting forests is more urgent than ever.   

Thanks to the efforts of our producer networks in Latin America, Africa, and Asia Pacific, thousands of farmers have been trained to collect and manage  geolocation data. We are also providing cooperatives with deforestation risk analyses at no cost, reducing the compliance burden while strengthening trust with buyers.

And Fairtrade’s digital platforms are being enhanced to allow for the secure and consent-based exchange of geolocation data between cooperatives, exporters and importers, in the format necessary for the EU system. This is a part of our efforts related to traceability, which is increasingly important for sustainability and corporate accountability and should be invested in by all  actors in the supply chain.

Europe has made an important commitment to protect forests. Fairtrade calls for this commitment to also be fair to smallholder farmers - and even beneficial when it comes to farm and business insights.  With shared responsibility and support, we can continue to move forward and build a sustainable and equitable global food system.