EU Deforestation Law to Face Real-World Test: Indonesian Palm Oil Under Suspicion

Investigation on the eve of the law's entry into force

The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) enters into force on 30 December 2026 — after repeated postponements and political pressure from EU governments and businesses seeking to soften or delay it. This is reported by Euronews citing investigations by Indonesian environmental organizations and government agencies. The law requires suppliers of cocoa, coffee, soy, palm oil, timber, rubber and beef to prove that their products are not linked to deforestation, in exchange for access to the EU market.

What the investigation revealed

The organizations WALHI Kalteng, TuK Indonesia and Sawit Watch traced links between plantations in the Indonesian province of Central Kalimantan and major international consumer brands. Among the recent buyers of palm oil from these plantations are PepsiCo, Unilever, Ferrero, Mondelez and Procter & Gamble. The investigation found signs of forest clearing in 2024 on the plantation of PT Karya Makmur Abadi — a subsidiary of KLK Group — even though the law's 'cut-off date' is 31 December 2020: products from land cleared after that date are completely banned from the EU market. This creates a risk of such palm oil entering the EU, although the investigation did not establish that each of the named companies broke the law.

Pressure on the law and environmentalists' reaction

Implementation of the law has already faced political difficulties: the postponement of deadlines was explained by concerns about administrative costs, traceability requirements and the burden on businesses and trading partners. Producer countries — Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, Colombia, Ghana and the United States — lobbied in Brussels for a revision of the rules, and the US Ambassador to the EU, Andrew Puzder, called the law excessive regulation, 'selective protectionism' and an unnecessary non-tariff barrier. Sawit Watch Executive Director Ahmad Surambo said that the largest buyers of palm oil in Europe failed to control their own involvement in deforestation, adding: 'Indonesian communities want the immediate and strict application of European supply chain sustainability regulations.' Perrine Fournier of the NGO Fern called the investigation's findings evidence that Indonesia's palm oil industry 'remains tainted by illegality,' and urged the competent authorities responsible for enforcing the EUDR to respond to these findings. Indonesia is losing forest at some of the fastest rates in the world due to illegal logging, mining, new oil palm plantations and slash-and-burn agriculture; large-scale forest fires in the country have also been linked to decades of forest degradation. The December deadline, as Euronews puts it, will be a test of Brussels' ability to move from negotiating environmental ambitions to actually implementing them.