Civil servants and bureaucratic mandarins have managed to transform a good idea into a potential administrative nightmare unless common sense prevails.
An initiative designed to ensure that commercial exploitation of protected habitats could not find markets for a variety of products and by-products such as coffee, cocoa, soya and wood pulp within the EU has run into political difficulties with a letter from the Agriculture Ministers of 18 EU Member States to the President of the Commission outlining their fundamental difficulties with many aspects of the Guidelines accompanying the Directive.
For retailers, regardless of their size, there would be a legal requirement for them to certify, on an annual basis, that a number of products, including newspapers, till rolls, paper bags, coffee, palm oil, etc have come into their possession from certified deforestation-free sources.
The Association has engaged with other representative bodies to make both Agriculture and Enterprise, as well as our Commissioner aware that these types of additional administrative burdens only serve to alienate small and medium-sized businesses and run the risk of having widescale non-compliance.
We are of the belief that whoever brings the product into the individual Member State in the first instance should be the ONLY party obliged to declare and certify, not all of their customers and their customers.
