Over the past five years, the European Commission under Ursula von der Leyen has passed more environmental regulations than any commission in history. The Green Deal was a triumph of soaring rhetoric and self-satisfaction. But the regulations themselves have been just words on a page, like the endless tweets and press releases emanating from MEPs’ offices.
Now, though, it is implementation time. And the real world, it turns out, does not share the Green Deal architects’ vision. Huge numbers that made great headlines are not feasible in such a short time. The granular data requirements that made the EU appear tough prove too expensive in reality.
The real world is where most EU citizens live. Dependent on local and global supply chains, sensitive to changes in the price of food, energy and materials, Europeans are now concerned that local and national businesses — that provide jobs for millions — are facing higher bills and more red tape.
The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) in particular has proven to be seriously problematic. The implementation deadline was planned for December 30, 2024 but has now been delayed by twelve months. Those in power have finally realized that if EUDR actually does go ahead in December, then chaos will reign. Why? It is rather simple. The regulation is not written with the real world in mind.
The EUDR covers commodities largely produced in the developing world: palm oil from Malaysia, coffee from Ethiopia; cocoa from Cote d’Ivoire, rubber from Thailand, soy from Brazil and so on, imposing draconian requirements on small farmers in the countries which produce such commodities.
Some of the requirements — like detailed geotargeting of crops, or submission of millions of individual supply chain data points — would be very challenging even for Western multinationals. Yet the EUDR, in its far-sighted ambition, tries to impose those demands on small farmers in Africa or Asia who do not own a smartphone.
Imagine a supermarket bill where each of those products listed above and coming from the developing world has increased in price, or reduced in supply. Almost every single one of the 450 million EU citizens will be negatively impacted. All because of an EU regulation which is simply not realistic.
Earlier this year, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz directly asked Ursula von der Leyen to delay EUDR for this reason. Most of the EU’s Agriculture Ministers have made the same demand. Senior MEPs, including the leading German EPP MEP on the Environment Committee, Peter Liese, also backed a delay.
However these interventions were late, and this entire situation was avoidable. The EU’s trading partners had been warning about the problems for years. Ministers and trade officials from Malaysia, for example, have predicted precisely this chaos and uncertainty from the beginning of 2023.
No-one in Brussels listened: the hubris of the bureaucrats overrode the real-life experience of the traders, farmers and suppliers from the developing world.
The new commission’s overlapping environmental top brass, Jessika Roswall, Wopke Hoekstra and Teresa Ribera, will now have twelve months to fix the problem. If not, we will all face a January 2026 dominated by supply chain disruptions, sharply rising food prices and restricted supply of core commodities.
The three new commission’s heads for environment and climate need to learn from this farce. They must listen more to Europe’s trading partners and seek genuine engagement with the private sector inside and outside the Union, so as to resist yet another hubris of the EU bubble.
Some may think that sophisticated global supply chains can simply adhere to overzealous press releases without any negative effects on consumers. This is clearly non-pragmatic. Will the lessons be learned? We can surely hope so, but let’s be honest. That hope comes without any real expectation.
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