With the one-year postponement of the application of the “Deforestation-free” Regulation, the European Commission had until June 30, 2025 to publish the list of countries or parts of countries that present a low or high risk of deforestation in relation to the exploitation of the “relevant products”, namely cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soya and wood.

The level of risk attributed to a country determines the level of compliance checks that the competent authorities in the Member States must carry out on imports (1% for low-risk countries, 3% for standard-risk countries and 9% for high-risk countries). It also has an impact on operators’ obligations, which are lightened when raw materials come from low-risk countries.

All countries were assigned a “standard” risk level when the “Deforestation-free” Regulation came into force. And it was up to the Commission to assess the actual level of risk and publish a ranking of countries reflecting this.

This has now been done, thanks to Implementing Regulation 2025/1093, published in the Official Journal of the European Union on May 23.
Two lists are proposed:
• High-risk countries, of which there are four: Belarus, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Myanmar, Russian Federation
• …