About one month earlier than expected, the European Commission has released the EUDR country risk benchmarking.

The classification of high-risk countries according to EU or UN sanctions follows the information that was previously leaked by EU diplomats to Euractiv.

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Background

• The benchmarking classifies countries according to the risk of deforestation regarding the production of EUDR commodities.
• The risk classification defines the extent of compliance checks that EU competent authorities will perform on operators when sourcing from these countries: (1% for ‘low risk’, 3% for ‘standard risk’, and 9% for ‘high risk’).
• Sourcing from low-risk countries enables simplified due diligence, meaning that operators and traders need to collect information, but not assess and mitigate risks.

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Methodology

The benchmarking is based on the latest available forest cover and deforestation data from the FAO Global Forest Resources Assessment and data from FAOSTAT on cropland expansion and commodity production.

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High Risk

Only countries subject to UN or EU sanctions are classified as high risk.

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Low Risk

There are four possibilities for a country to be classified as low risk:

1. There is a net forest loss between 2015 and 2020 (no deforestation).
2. The level of deforestation is below both the relative threshold (0,2% of annual forest loss between 2015 and 2020) and the absolute threshold (70.000 hectares of forest loss per year).
3. Deforestation is below 1.000 hectares of absolute net forest loss per year.
4. There is no expansion of agricultural land for EUDR crops, no increase in the level of production of timber and cattle, and no expansion of overall agricultural land.

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Standard Risk

All further countries are classified as standard risk.

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The benchmarking process will be dynamic, with a first review scheduled for 2026.

Country Classification List:

https://green-forum.ec.europa.eu/deforestation-regulation-implementation/eudr-cooperation-and-partnerships/country-classification-list_en

EUDR benchmarking, cooperation, and partnerships:

https://green-forum.ec.europa.eu/deforestation-regulation-implementation/eudr-cooperation-and-partnerships_en

Documents providing more background information on the benchmarking:

https://environment.ec.europa.eu/publications/commission-implementing-regulation-laying-down-rules-application-deforestation-regulation_en

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