European countries want EU-level action to achieve sustainable and deforestation-free agricultural imports and reduce the associated expansion into primary forests of producer countries.
In a statement to the Council of the European Union by the German, Danish, French, Italian, Netherlands, UK and Norwegian delegations, the request was said to be made in order to reach the EU goals on climate change, biodiversity and sustainable development.
The delegations drew the Council’s attention to “the conclusions of the successful multi-stakeholder conference of the Amsterdam Group ‘Approaches for sustainable and deforestation-free supply chains – cross-learning from palm oil, cocoa and soy’ that was held in Berlin on June 20, 2017.
The statement references two declarations signed by the Amsterdam Group for the purpose of achieving “fully sustainable and deforestation-free agro-commodity supply chains in Europe”. According to the statement, the Amsterdam Declarations bring together a group of European countries inside and outside of the EU that together form a considerable consumer market and are responsible for a large part of global commodity trade with Europe.