The European leather industry met in Milan at Lineapelle in the COTANCE Council held on 25 September 2025.
Under the Presidency of Manuel Rios (INPELSA, Spain), Fabrizio Nuti (Nuti-Ivo, Italy) and Jean Christophe Muller (Tanneries Haas, France), delegates from UNIC (IT), ACEXPIEL (ES), FFTM (FR), VDL (DE), LeatherUK (UK) and APIC (PT), welcomed the European Commission’s announcement to postpone the entry into application of the EU Regulation for Deforestation-free supply chains (EUDR) by one additional year.
COTANCE calls on the European Commission to take advantage of the postponement for finally releasing the Impact Assessment of EUDR Article 34 and to use the delegated act for removing hides, skins and leather from the scope of the Regulation. Indeed, hides, skins and leather should never have been listed in the scope of the EUDR, as it is evidenced in the Study of the Sant'Anna Institute of the University of Pisa that leather is not a driver of deforestation.
COTANCE also urges the European Commission, the Council and the European Parliament to proceed to a substantial simplification of the EUDR through an Omnibus package, in order to ensure that only products which are real drivers of deforestation fall into its scope and that 0 to low risk countries don't have to provide geolocation-based traceability and/or that only the first placing on the EU market had to fulfil a due Diligence Statement.
  |