The European Commission’s sudden plan to delay – yet again – a landmark law banning imports linked to deforestation is officially being blamed on an overloaded IT system. But many just see a familiar political game in play. … Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall said that the Commission is considering a further one-year delay in a letter. …An IT glitch? The Commission insists the issue is purely operational. …Questions deemed “too political” were ruled out of order at the briefing. …Pascal Canfin, Renew’s negotiator on EUDR, remained sceptical of the Commission’s spin. “There are two options: that this is a real technical problem – in which case it is deplorable,” he told Euractiv. “The second option is that this is just a pretext,” pointing to the EU-US trade agreement. The statement issued by Brussels and Washington labels the US as posing “negligible risk to global deforestation” and commits Brussels to address the concerns of American producers and exporters.

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