The EU Council rejected the changes proposed by the European Parliament on the regulation against deforestation, effectively rejecting the line of the EPP which, however, had forced a change to the text by forming a surprise alliance with the radical right of the Chamber. Coreper, the body that brings together the ambassadors of the member states, only gave its green light to postponing by one year the application of the regulation which aims to reduce so-called imported deforestation, i.e. the entry into Europe of products that contribute to disappearance of woods and forests in other parts of the world, but said no to further changes.
The story
The Commission had proposed to postpone the application of the regulation for a year to give companies more time to prepare for the new rules. But Manfred Weber’s EPP, with a coup, had taken the opportunity to insert some amendments that weakened the text, going against the indications of socialists and liberals. And he did it thanks to the support of the Patriots of Orban and Salvini, the Conservatives of Meloni and the Europe of the sovereign nations of the German AfD, triggering a political case in Brussels.
But the amendments presented by the European People’s Party (EPP) and approved by the European Parliament last week were rejected by the ambassadors of the member countries (who mostly also represent popular governments), who overwhelmingly supported the extension of one year desired by the Commission but without further changes to the text.
Positions and next steps
Italy was in favor of the amendments. Diplomatic sources explained that the condition posed by our country was that the modification facilitated and did not jeopardize the approval of the postponement of the regulation. But the Council lacked a majority on this line, and there was therefore the risk of starting a battle that could have continued for months, effectively leading to the entry into force of the provision on 30 December, and therefore obtaining the opposite effect to the desired one. And so in the end the majority of member countries rejected all eight changes to the original text approved by Parliament.
Now we will go to the Trilogue, i.e. the negotiations between the Council and Parliament mediated by the Commission, but the most probable hypothesis is that in the end the Parliament (and therefore the EPP) agrees to give up the proposed changes.
