The EU International Forest Governance and the EUDR: Policy Research and Legal Analysis for Fern

The EU Regulation on Deforestation-Free Products (EUDR) is one of the most consequential and contested elements of the EU’s green trade agenda, imposing due diligence requirements on operators placing forest-risk commodities on the EU market and establishing a risk benchmarking system that classifies countries according to their deforestation risk profile. While the Regulation reflects a genuine commitment to halting EU-driven deforestation, its extraterritorial implications have generated significant concern among the EU’s trading partners — particularly developing countries whose economies are heavily dependent on commodity exports and whose producers often lack the traceability and certification infrastructure required for compliance. At the same time, the EUDR has been subject to sustained political pressure within the EU itself, leading to a twelve-month delay in its implementation and a series of proposed amendments that threatened to significantly dilute its ambitions.

Tulip carried out two complementary pieces of in-depth policy and legal analysis for Fern — a leading European NGO working on forest protection and sustainable development — contributing to the debate on how the EU’s approach to international forest governance can be made more effective and development-sensitive under the second von der Leyen Commission.

The first was a policy report examining the evolution of the EU’s forest governance agenda through three distinct phases: an initial cooperative, timber-focused model under FLEGT; a more assertive, consumption-driven approach under the European Green Deal centred on the EUDR; and a more recent shift toward partnership-based “forest diplomacy.” Drawing on more than thirty in-depth interviews with stakeholders from producer countries, the report surfaced significant concerns about growing incoherence between the EU’s trade, development, and environmental policies; insufficient financial and technical support for compliance; and particular risks of exclusion for smallholders. It proposed a three-pillar framework for von der Leyen II — a new EU Communication on international forest governance, deeper and more tailored bilateral forest partnerships, and stronger engagement in multilateral forums — arguing that forest protection can align with the EU’s competitiveness agenda, but only through a genuine partnership model combining trade, climate justice, and development.

The second was a targeted legal analysis produced in the context of growing political pressure on the EUDR, which faced significant delays in its implementation and a series of legislative proposals aimed at revising and weakening its core provisions. One such proposal — which attracted widespread criticism — was the introduction of a “no risk” country category which would have freed certain countries from some of the Regulation’s core obligations. Tulip’s analysis assessed the WTO consistency of this proposed exemption and found that, had it been adopted, it would have likely rendered the EUDR inconsistent with the non-discrimination provisions of GATT Articles I and III, in a manner that could not be justified under GATT Article XX. The analysis was distributed to Members of the European Parliament ahead of the legislative vote and contributed directly to the debate. The exemption was ultimately not included in the final text.