EC simplifes the implementation of the EU Deforestation Regulation

With the aim of simplifying and reducing the administrative burden to facilitate the implementation of the EU Deforestation Regulation, the European Commission has published new guidance documents for Member States, operators and traders in view of the Regulation’s entry into force at the end of this year.

Key simplification measures

With today's new guidance documents, the Commission has introduced a number of simplification measures, for example:

• Large companies can reuse existing due diligence statements when goods, previously on the EU market, are reimported. This means that less information needs to be submitted in the IT system;
• An authorised representative can now submit a due diligence statement on behalf of members of company groups;
• Companies will be allowed to submit due diligence statements annually instead of for every shipment or batch placed on the EU market;
• Clarification of ‘ascertaining' that due diligence has been carried out, so that large companies downstream benefit from simplified obligations (a minimal legal obligation of collecting reference numbers of Due Diligence Statement (DDS) from their suppliers and using those references for their own DDS submissions now applies).

All the updated measures are expected to significantly reduce the number of due diligence statements that companies need to file, replying to key industry demands. The goal of these simplifications for due diligence statements is to ensure easy and efficient data entry for all users.