The European Union is on the cusp of removing leather from the scope of its landmark antideforestation law, following months of intense lobbying by the industry.Leather industry groups led by COTANCE and UNIC have held at least 22 meetings with lawmakers since 2021, with more than a third occurring in the past year as the regulation neared implementation. The EU Deforestation Regulation was explicitly discussed in 11 of those meetings.The tannery industry argues that leather should be exempt from complying with the regulations, contending that hides are simply waste in beef production.Environmental campaigners have called this stance “shameful,” pointing out bovine hides often share the same origins as problematic beef supply chains.
The leather industry spent most of the last year intensifying an already determined lobbying campaign in Brussels to win an exemption from the European Union’s Deforestation Regulation, or EUDR. The effort is paying off: on May 4, the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, formally proposed excluding leather, hides, and skins from the regulation’s product scope, ahead of the law being enacted at the end of the year.
The Commission’s proposal is being introduced through a delegated act, a legal mechanism that allows the EU executive to amend non-essential parts of an existing law without reopening the whole regulation for a full legislative debate.
