As we anticipated in the October issue of Pneurama, on 14 November the European Parliament officially approved the Commission's proposal to postpone the application of the European Regulation on Deforestation (EUDR – Reg. 2023/1115) by 12 months. Thanks to this extension, large operators and traders will now have to comply with the certification obligations arising from this regulation from 30 December 2025, while micro-enterprises and small businesses will have until 30 June 2026. This decision runs counter to the wishes expressed by ETRMA, the European association of tyre and rubber manufacturers, which had repeatedly called for the regulation not to be delayed in order to avoid opening "a new phase of uncertainty for the sector" and to protect the investments made by companies to ensure compliance with the regulation by the originally planned date of 30 December 2024. It must be said, however, that while smaller companies will now have more time to better understand the procedures and prepare for implementation, a range of uncertainties remains—uncertainties that would not have disappeared even if the extension had not been granted. For example, there are doubts among operators as to whether the due diligence declarations submitted by the obligated entities will actually be verified by the competent authorities, even though this would be a fundamental aspect in ensuring the measure’s effectiveness. There is also a significant economic concern. One year before the regulation comes into force, it has already led to a 20% increase in the cost of natural rubber, with forecasts predicting further increases. This represents a serious blow to the competitiveness of European industries, which have already been severely impacted by energy inflation—an issue that, as is well known, has not affected Asian countries to the same extent. It should also be noted that the regulation imposes bureaucratic burdens not only on European companies that import natural rubber but also on the six million small family businesses that produce it in Asia and Africa. There are fears that a significant portion of the production currently destined for Europe could be redirected to other markets that impose fewer demands on small producers. Finally, there is another issue—perhaps of lesser importance, yet emblematic of an entirely paradoxical outcome. A regulation designed to serve crucial and widely supported environmental objectives risks seriously damaging the very sector that epitomises sustainability in the tyre industry: retreading. As it stands, the regulation requires due diligence declarations not only for the new tread applied during the retreading process (which is reasonable) but also for the carcass being retreaded. This obligation appears not only unnecessary—since the carcass has evidently already been placed on the European market—but also impossible to comply with, as once a tyre reaches the end user, the flow of information is inevitably interrupted. The predictable consequence is that millions of perfectly retreadable carcasses will have to be disposed of simply because compliance with the regulation is unfeasible. All of this highlights that, in these additional 12 months, there is still a great deal of work to be done to protect European rubber companies. Let us hope that this time is not wasted!
