“Excluding hides and leather or greatly simplify the EUDR“, because the obligations imposed by the Anti-Deforestation Regulation are heavy and, in many cases, unworkable burden on Italian and EU tanneries. And because they are an undue burden, since leather is not a driver of deforestation.
This is how one can summarize the message that Antonio Tajani, vice-president of the Council of Ministers and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MAECI), wrote to Ursula von der Leyen (president of the European Commission) and Maroš Šefčovič (Trade Commissioner). The EUDR comes into effect in 2026 and there is still time to amend the Regulation, including the list of products on which to apply it to.
“Excluding leather or greatly simplify the EUDR”
The exclusion of leather from the EUDR, writes Tajani (pictured, Imagoeconomica), is “an existential issue” for the tanning industry, which in Italy “employs 18,000 people” and “represents about 65% of the European sector”. The EUDR requires operators of bovine hides and skins (at every stage of processing) to “geolocate farms considering the entire life cycle of the animal, from birth to slaughter“.
An unbearable burden because the information can’t be gathered by the tanneries’ own suppliers (especially those from outside Europe) are unable to collect and provide in a certified manner by the end of the year. An “unnecessary burden” since leather is not a driver of deforestation (as the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa has also shown). An assist to non-European manufacturers and an invitation to relocate European ones. Why? The regulation allows the same hides, once processed into finished articles outside the EU perimeter, to enter the single market at no charge.
The reasons for intervening
Minister Tajani, therefore, took to the urgency of Italian tanning: to see leather removed from Annex I or, at the very least, relieved of the geolocation requirement for hides and skins from countries considered low-risk. The message follows a meeting on June 16, when the MAECI holder met Fabrizio Nuti and Piero Rosati, respectively president and vice president of UNIC – Italian Tanneries, with a delegation of local administrators for a meeting on the risks to the tanning industry from the EUDR.
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