The EU intends to delay strict policing of imports from areas prone to deforestation after several governments in Asia, Africa and Latin America complained that the rules would be burdensome, unfair and scare off investors.
Brussels will put off classification of countries into low, standard or high risk, which was due to be implemented by December, instead designating every country as standard risk to give them more time to adapt to the anti-deforestation regulation, three EU officials told the Financial Times.
“We will simply not classify which means everywhere will be medium risk — we need more time to get the system in place,” said one official. “We have had a lot of complaints from partners. [The delay] means no country will have an advantage over another.”