Expression de soutien au Règlement de l’Union Européenne contre la déforestation (EUDR) par les organisations de producteurs et de la société civile en Côte d’Ivoire et au Ghana.

Abidjan and Accra, 25 June 2025

Madam President of the European Commission, Ladies and Gentlemen European Commissioners,

Ministers for the Environment of the Member States of the European Union, Members of the European Parliament,

Subject: expression of support to the EUDR by producer and civil society organisations in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana

Dear European decision-makers,

We are a group of more than 150 civil society organisations and farmers' organisations, representing more than 800 small cocoa farm owners in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana. We are writing to you to express our deep concern at press reports that the agriculture ministers of 11 Member States have taken a position against the entry into force of the European regulation on products linked to deforestation and forest degradation (EUDR), which was definitively adopted by the European Union in 2023 after a clear democratic process involving consultation with several types of stakeholders.

We are fully aware of the challenges involved in setting up robust traceability systems with geolocation, particularly for small plots. However, we see these challenges above all as an opportunity to provide the necessary support to small farm owners and their cooperatives so that they can continue to invest in order to comply.

In July 2024, we wrote to you to express our firm opposition to postponing the entry into force of the regulation. In our view, this approach was not meaningful, as it would only have given a short respite to those players who simply wanted to see the regulation disappear. Today, we are stunned to see that these same players are coming back with similar arguments that have already led to the decision to postpone. Faced with such a situation, which is clearly aimed at doing away with the regulation, we are calling for the EUDR to be implemented in accordance with the commitments made by the Commission in its October 2024 communication. For us, players in the cocoa supply chain in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, the EUDR is not only a text in favour of the essential fight against deforestation, we consider it to be a decisive element in achieving the desire for sustainable, fair and equitable supply chains.

While all the players in our countries had been comforted and reassured about the progress of the process, particularly following the publication on 22 May 2025 of the comparative analysis of countries according to their level of risk (benchmarking), this latest information from Brussels creates confusion and raises questions about the real willingness of the European authorities to go through with the effective implementation of these regulations.

At a time when, in both our countries, the necessary efforts and investment are being made, in particular to set up national traceability systems and several important regulatory reforms such as the