Relevant commodity : Wood

Relevant products :

4401 Fuel wood, in logs, in billets, in twigs, in faggots or in similar forms; wood in chips or particles; sawdust and wood waste and scrap, whether or not agglomerated in logs, briquettes, pellets or similar forms

4402 Wood charcoal (including shell or nut charcoal), whether or not agglomerated

4403 Wood in the rough, whether or not stripped of bark or sapwood, or roughly squared

4404 Hoopwood; split poles; piles, pickets and stakes of wood, pointed but not sawn lengthwise; wooden sticks, roughly trimmed but not turned, bent or otherwise worked, suitable for the manufacture of walking sticks, umbrellas, tool handles or the like; chipwood and the like

4405 Wood wool; wood flour

4406 Railway or tramway sleepers (cross-ties) of wood

4407 Wood sawn or chipped lengthwise, sliced or peeled, whether or not planed, sanded or end-jointed, of a thickness exceeding 6 mm

4408 Sheets for veneering (including those obtained by slicing laminated wood), for plywood or for other similar laminated wood and other wood, sawn lengthwise, sliced or peeled, whether or not planed, sanded, spliced or end-jointed, of a thickness not exceeding 6 mm

4409 Wood (including strips and friezes for parquet flooring, not assembled) continuously shaped (tongued, grooved, rebated, chamfered, V-jointed, beaded, moulded, rounded or the like) along any of its edges, ends or faces, whether or not planed, sanded or end-jointed

4410 Particle board, oriented strand board (OSB) and similar board (for example, waferboard) of wood or other ligneous materials, whether or not agglomerated with resins or other organic binding substances

4411 Fibreboard of wood or other ligneous materials, whether or not bonded with resins or other organic substances

4412 Plywood, veneered panels and similar laminated wood

4413 Densified wood, in blocks, plates, strips or profile shapes

4414 Wooden frames for paintings, photographs, mirrors or similar objects

4415 Packing cases, boxes, crates, drums and similar packings, of wood; cable-drums of wood; pallets, box pallets and other load boards, of wood;

pallet collars of wood

(not including packing material used exclusively as packing material to support, protect or carry another product placed on the market)

4416 Casks, barrels, vats, tubs and other coopers’ products and parts thereof, of wood, including staves

4417 Tools, tool bodies, tool handles, broom or brush bodies and handles, of wood; boot or shoe lasts and trees, of wood

4418 Builders’ joinery and carpentry of wood, including cellular wood panels, assembled flooring panels, shingles and shakes

4419 Tableware and kitchenware, of wood

4420 Wood marquetry and inlaid wood; caskets and cases for jewellery or cutlery, and similar articles, of wood; statuettes and other ornaments, of wood; wooden articles of furniture not falling in Chapter 94

4421 Other articles of wood

Pulp and paper of Chapters 47 and 48 of the Combined Nomenclature, with the exception of bamboo-based and recovered (waste and scrap) products

ex 49 Printed books, newspapers, pictures and other products of the printing industry, manuscripts, typescripts and plans, of paper

ex 9401 Seats (other than those of heading 9402 ), whether or not convertible into beds, and parts thereof, of wood

9403 30 , 9403 40 , 9403 50 , 9403 60 and 9403 91 Wooden furniture, and parts thereof

9406 10 Prefabricated buildings of wood

Note: The notation "ex" in front of a code indicates that it covers more products than the one explicitly identified in the list

Relevant commodity : Cattle

Relevant products :

0102 21 , 0102 29 Live cattle

ex 0201 Meat of cattle, fresh or chilled

ex 0202 Meat of cattle, frozen

ex 0206 10 Edible offal of cattle, fresh or chilled

ex 0206 22 Edible cattle livers, frozen

ex 0206 29 Edible cattle offal (excluding tongues and livers), frozen

ex 1602 50 Other prepared or preserved meat, meat offal, blood, of cattle

ex 4101 Raw hides and skins of cattle (fresh, or salted, dried, limed, pickled or otherwise preserved, but not tanned, parchment-dressed or further prepared), whether or not dehaired or split

ex 4104 Tanned or crust hides and skins of cattle, without hair on, whether or not split, but not further prepared

ex 4107 Leather of cattle, further prepared after tanning or crusting, including parchment-dressed leather, without hair on, whether or not split, other than leather of heading 4114

Relevant commodity : Cocoa

Relevant products :

1801 Cocoa beans, whole or broken, raw or roasted

1802 Cocoa shells, husks, skins and other cocoa waste

1803 Cocoa paste, whether or not defatted

1804 Cocoa butter, fat and oil

1805 Cocoa powder, not containing added sugar or other sweetening matter

1806 Chocolate and other food preparations containing cocoa

Relevant commodity : Coffee

Relevant products :

0901 Coffee, whether or not roasted or decaffeinated; coffee husks and skins; coffee substitutes containing coffee in any proportion

‘relevant commodities’ means cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soya and wood;

‘relevant products’ means products listed in Annex I that contain, have been fed with or have been made using relevant commodities;

‘produced’ means grown, harvested, obtained from or raised on relevant plots of land or, as regards cattle, on establishments;

‘placing on the market’ means the first making available of a relevant commodity or relevant product on the Union market;

‘making available on the market’ means any supply of a relevant product for distribution, consumption or use on the Union market in the course of a commercial activity, whether in return for payment or free of charge;

‘in the course of a commercial activity’ means for the purpose of processing, for distribution to commercial or non-commercial consumers, or for use in the business of the operator or trader itself;

 ‘operator’ means any natural or legal person who, in the course of a commercial activity, places relevant products on the market or exports them;

‘trader’ means any person in the supply chain other than the operator who, in the course of a commercial activity, makes relevant products available on the market;

Traders who are large companies - i.e. who meet at least 2 of the following criteria: sales of over €40 million and/or a balance sheet of €20 million and/or an average of 250 employees - are considered as operators and must meet the same requirements.

Note: operators and merchants may choose to mandate a third-party "mandatary" to make the due diligence declaration available. Responsibility for the conformity of the goods concerned lies with the operator or trader.

‘deforestation-free’ means:
(a) that the relevant products contain, have been fed with or have been made using, relevant commodities that were produced on land that has not been subject to deforestation after 31 December, 2020; and

(b) in the case of relevant products that contain or have been made using wood, that the wood has been harvested from the forest without inducing forest degradation after 31 December, 2020;

‘deforestation’ means the conversion of forest to agricultural use, whether human-induced or not;

‘forest degradation’ means structural changes to forest cover, taking the form of the conversion of:

1. primary forests or naturally regenerating forests into plantation forests or into other wooded land; or
2. primary forests into planted forests;

Operator :

1. Ban on placing on the EU market (or exporting) relevant products listed in Annex I of the regulation, which contain the relevant commodities concerned, if they do not meet the following criteria:

   • They are free from deforestation ;

   • They have been produced in accordance with the legislation in force in the country of production;

   • They are accompanied by a declaration of due diligence;

2. Demonstrate due diligence and register the declaration in the information system to be set up by the Commission no later than December 30, 2024. The operator shall keep a record of due diligence declarations for five years from the date of submission of the declaration via the information system.

3. Communicate to operators and traders down the supply chain all the information necessary to confirm that due diligence has been carried out, including the reference numbers of the due diligence declarations associated with each product in question.

Note on the operator's obligation : By way of derogation, SME operators are not obliged to exercise due diligence for the relevant products  contained in or manufactured from the relevant products which have already undergone due diligence and for which a due diligence declaration has already been submitted. In such cases, SME operators shall provide the competent authorities, on request, with the reference number of the due diligence declaration.

Traders who are SMEs (micro, small and medium-sized enterprises as defined in Directive 2013/34/EU33) :

1. Must collect and maintain :

   • supplier and buyer information ;

   • reference numbers of due diligence declarations associated with each commodity and product;

2. Keep this information for at least 5 years;

3. Provide this information to the relevant authorities on request.

Traders may only make relevant products available on the EU market if they are in possession of the information required by the EUDR.

The trader who is a large company :

In other words, a company that meets at least 2 of the following criteria: sales of over €40 million and/or a balance sheet of €20 million and/or an average of 250 employees is considered an operator and must therefore meet the requirements set for operators.

What does "deforestation-free products" mean?

Products are said to be "deforestation-free" when they contain, have been fed with or have been manufactured from raw materials that :

1. have been produced on land that has not been subject to deforestation after December 31, 2020.,
   
2. and, in the case of wood products, the forest from which the wood originates has been harvested without causing degradation after December 31, 2020.

What does "forest degradation" mean?

"Forest degradation": structural changes in forest cover, in the form of the conversion of:

1. Primary forests or naturally regenerating forests into:
   
   • forest plantations or
   • other wooded land
2. Primary forests to planted forests
   

The concept of "legality" 

Legality is defined as compliance with the legislation in force in the country of production (harvesting), in terms of :

• Land use rights
• Environmental protection
• Forestry regulations
• labor rights
• Human rights protected by international law
• Stakeholder rights
• Principle of FPIC (Free, Prior and Informed Consent), including UNDRIP (United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples)
• Taxation, anti-corruption, trade and customs regulations

Additional requirements for wood compared to other commodities 

Wood products must be harvested in accordance with current legislation and not have contributed to forest degradation after December 31, 2020..

The first thing a company needs to do is to check whether the products it imports, sells or exports are among those listed in Annex 1 of the EUDR.

Some wood products are already within the scope of the EUWR, which came into force in 2013.

With the EUDR, other wood products and commodities have been added to the scope. See the full list in the annex to the regulation.

The relevant products that concern the musical instruments and accessories sector are :

• Wood and wood products - customs codes from 4401 to 4421, but also:
• Stool, bench, bench, seat for drummer - 9401
• Catalogs, brochures, notices, books, booklets, scores, posters - 4900
• Display - 940360
• Boxes, bags, pouches, cones and other packaging made of paper, cardboard, cellulose wadding or webs of cellulose fibres; office, shop or similar cartons - 48

If at least one of these products concerns your company, you need to know what your role in the marketing chain is in order to determine whether you are an operator or a trader for the purposes of the EUDR.

You are an industrial or craft manufacturer or distributor

1. If you import at least one of these products yourself (without going through an intermediate importer), you are an operator.

2. If you export at least one of these products yourself (without going through an intermediary exporter), you are an operator.

3. In the two previous cases, if you manufacture a musical instrument that you sell or export, you are neither a trader nor a trader for this sale.

4. If you are an SME and sell at least one of these products to another company in the EU, you are a trader. If you export it outside the EU, you are a operator.

5. If you are a large company and sell at least one of these products to another company in the EU or export it outside the EU, you are a operator.

You are an importer or exporter of at least one of these products

You are an operator

⇒ Whether you are an operator or a retailer, you need to comply with the EUDR.

When is a musical instrument manufacturer an operator?

Operators exercise due diligence before placing the products concerned on the EU market or before exporting them from it. This involves information gathering, risk assessment and risk mitigation.

A declaration of due diligence must be made available to the competent authorities via the online information system before the product is placed on the market or exported. No import or export can take place without this declaration.

1 - Information gathering (for each product concerned) :

1. description, (...) in the case of products containing or manufactured from wood, the common name of the species and its full scientific name; the description of the product includes a list of the basic products concerned or the products concerned which it contains or which are used to manufacture it;
2. the quantity of the relevant products (in Kg net mass or HS code unit);
3. the country of production and, where applicable, parts of this country;
4. the geolocation of all the plots of land on which the basic relevant commodities contained in the relevant product were produced;
5. the name, postal address and e-mail address of any company or person from whom they have purchased the relevant products;
6. the name, postal address and e-mail address of any company, operator or trader to whom the relevant products have been supplied;
7. sufficiently conclusive and verifiable information attesting that the relevant products are zero deforestation;
8. sufficiently conclusive and verifiable information that the relevant commodities have been produced in accordance with the relevant legislation of the country of production, including any agreement granting the right to use the area concerned for the purpose of producing the relevant commodity.

2 - Risk assessment:

Country assessment: Risk criteria are set by the commission. As of 06/29/2023, all countries are rated "standard risk". A list of high- and low-risk countries will be published by December 30, 2024.

1. High risk: country or part of a country where the production of the relevant commodities for which the relevant products do not comply
   
2. Low risk: guarantee that the high risk is exceptional
3. Standard risk: neither high nor low risk

How to assess a risk:

1. Operators shall verify and analyse the information collected in accordance with Article 9 and any other relevant documentation. On the basis of that information and documentation, the operators shall carry out a risk assessment to establish whether there is a risk that the relevant products intended to be placed on the market or exported are non- compliant. Operators shall not place the relevant products on the market or export them, except where the risk assessment reveals no or only a negligible risk that the relevant products are non-compliant.
2. The risk assessment shall take into account, in particular, the following criteria:
   (a) the assignment of risk to the relevant country of production or parts thereof in accordance with Article 29;
   (b) the presence of forests in the country of production or parts thereof;
   (c) the presence of indigenous peoples in the country of production or parts thereof;
   (d) the consultation and cooperation in good faith with indigenous peoples in the country of production or parts thereof;
   (e) the existence of duly reasoned claims by indigenous peoples based on objective and verifiable information regarding the use or ownership of the area used for the purpose of producing the relevant commodity;
   (f) prevalence of deforestation or forest degradation in the country of production or parts thereof;
   (g) the source, reliability, validity, and links to other available documentation of the information referred to in Article 9(1);
   (h) concerns in relation to the country of production and origin or parts thereof, such as level of corruption, prevalence of document and data falsification, lack of law enforcement, violations of international human rights, armed conflict or presence of sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council or the Council of the European Union;
   (i) the complexity of the relevant supply chain and the stage of processing of the relevant products, in particular difficulties in connecting relevant products to the plot of land where the relevant commodities were produced;
   (j) the risk of circumvention of this Regulation or of mixing with relevant products of unknown origin or produced in areas where deforestation or forest degradation has occurred or is occurring;
   (k) conclusions of the meetings of the Commission expert groups supporting the implementation of this Regulation, as published in the Commission’s expert group register;
   (l) substantiated concerns submitted under Article 31, and information on the history of non-compliance of operators or traders along the relevant supply chain with this Regulation;
   (m) any information that would point to a risk that the relevant products are non-compliant;
   (n) complementary information on compliance with this Regulation, which may include information supplied by certification or other third-party verified schemes, including voluntary schemes recognised by the Commission under Article 30(5) of Directive(EU) 2018/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council (21), provided that the information meets the requirements set out in Article 9 of this Regulation.
3. Wood products which fall within the scope of Regulation (EC)No2173/2005 that are covered by a valid FLEGT license from an operational licensing scheme shall be deemed to comply with Article 3, point (b), of this Regulation.
4. The operators shall document and review the risk assessments at least on an annual basis and make them available to the competent authorities upon request. Operators shall be able to demonstrate how the information gathered was checked against the risk assessment criteria set out in paragraph 2 and how they determined the degree of risk.

3 - Risk mitigation :

Operators must:

• implement adequate and proportionate policies, controls and procedures to mitigate and manage risks ;
• adopt adequate risk mitigation procedures to achieve zero or negligible risk before marketing or exporting.

For risk assessment purposes, operators take into account:

... information provided by certification schemes or other third-party verification systems. In order to recognize good practice, verification systems could be used in the risk assessment procedure, but they should not replace the operator's responsibility for due diligence.

As indicated in Annex II of the regulation, the following information must be included in the due diligence declaration and must be registered in the information system from December 30, 2024 (June 30, 2025 for micro and small companies).

The information system will be set up by the Commission no later than December 30, 2024.

1. Operator’s name, address and, in the event of relevant commodities and relevant products entering or leaving the market, the Economic Operators Registration and Identification (EORI) number in accordance with Article 9 of Regulation (EU) No 952/2013.
   
   
2. Harmonised System code, free-text description, including the trade name as well as, where applicable, the full scientific name, and quantity of the relevant product that the operator intends to place on the market or export. For relevant products entering or leaving the market, the quantity is to be expressed in kilograms of net mass and, where applicable, in the supplementary unit set out in Annex I to Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87 against the indicated Harmonised System code or, in all other cases, expressed in net mass specifying a percentage estimate or deviation or, where applicable, volume or number of items. A supplementary unit is applicable where it is defined consistently for all possible subheadings under the Harmonised System code referred to in the due diligence statement.
   
   
3. Country of production and the geolocation of all plots of land where the relevant commodities were produced. For relevant products that contain or have been made using cattle, and for such relevant products that have been fed with relevant products, the geolocation shall refer to all the establishments where the cattle were kept. Where the relevant product contains or has been made using commodities produced in different plots of land, the geolocation of all plots of land shall be included in accordance with Article 9(1), point (d).
   
   
4. For operators referring to an existing due diligence statement pursuant to Article 4(8) and (9), the reference number of such due diligence statement.
   
   
5. The text: ‘By submitting this due diligence statement the operator confirms that due diligence in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 was carried out and that no or only a negligible risk was found that the relevant products do not comply with Article 3, point (a) or (b), of that Regulation.’.
   
   
6. Signature in the following format:
   ‘Signed for and on behalf of:
   Date:
   Name and function: Signature:’.

The Commission shall develop an electronic interface based on the EU Single Window environment for customs to enable the transmission of data between national customs systems and the information system. This electronic interface shall be implemented no later than five years after the entry into force of this Regulation.

The Commission shall develop an electronic interface setting up the EU single window environment for customs:

• to enable traders and operators to make available the due diligence declaration of a commodity or product concerned via a national one-stop-shop environment for customs and to receive comments from the competent authorities; and
• and to enable the transmission of this due diligence declaration to the information system of the present regulation.

In order to exercise due diligence, operators shall establish and maintain a framework of procedures and measures to ensure that the products concerned which they place on the EU market or export comply with the requirements of the Regulation.

The due diligence system must be updated at least once a year.

Operators who do not fall into the categories of SMEs, micro-enterprises or natural persons shall make public, on an annual basis, as wide a report as possible, including on the Internet, on their due diligence system, including the measures they have taken to implement their obligations. Operators also falling within the scope of other EU legislative instruments - which establish due diligence requirements for the value chain - may fulfil their reporting obligations under this paragraph by including the information required when reporting under other EU legislative instruments.

The competent authorities

Using the information system, the competent authorities carry out checks on their territory to establish whether operators and traders established in the Union are complying with their obligations under this Regulation, whether the relevant products - placed or made available on the Union market or exported from it - comply with the requirements of this Regulation.

The competent authorities report annually to the public and to the EU Commission on control activities and plans.

Operator controls

The competent authorities carry out annual checks covering different proportions, depending on the origin of the goods:

• Standard risk: at least 5% of operators placing products on the EU market or exporting from it will be inspected.
• High risk: at least 9% of operators using high-risk products, 9% of the quantity of each of the products concerned will be inspected.
• Low risk: at least 1% of operators will be controlled

Competent authorities may invoice operators for costs incurred in their activities in the event of non-compliance.

Corrective measures

Competent authorities may require operators or traders to take appropriate and proportionate corrective action to rectify instances of non-compliance:

• Rectification: correction of any identified non-conformity
• Product discontinuation: prohibition on placing the product on the EU market or exporting it
• Immediate withdrawal or recall of the product concerned
• Donation of the product concerned for charitable or public interest purposes
• Disposal of the product, in accordance with EU waste management regulations

Penalties

Member States shall lay down effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties, providing at least for :

• Fines proportionate to the environmental damage and the value of the products concerned
• Confiscation of the products concerned from the operator and/or professional
• Confiscation of any revenue derived by the operator and/or trader from a transaction involving the products concerned
• Temporary exclusion from public tendering procedures (up to 12 months)
• Temporary ban on placing products on the EU market or exporting them
• Ban on using the simplified due diligence procedure