Socio-economic and environmental impacts of Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 on the European leather supply chain

Question for written answer E-001517/2025 to the Commission Rule 144 Salvatore De Meo (PPE), Letizia Moratti (PPE), Massimiliano Salini (PPE), Flavio Tosi (PPE), Christine Schneider (PPE), Elena Donazzan (ECR), Francesco Torselli (ECR), Sebastian Tynkkynen (ECR), Mariateresa Vivaldini (ECR), Tomáš Kubín (PfE), Petr Bystron (ESN), Diana Iovanovici Şoşoacă (NI) Subject: Socio-economic and environmental impacts of Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 on the European leather supply chain Considering that: • Regulation (EU) 2023/11151 on deforestation-free products (the EU Deforestation Regulation – EUDR) also requires tanneries to trace skins from the birth of the animal in order to demonstrate the absence of links with deforestation; • Skin is a by-product (Regulation (EC) 1069/20092), waste that occurs from the slaughtering of cattle, representing only 1-2 % of the animal, and does not affect livestock breeding dynamics or deforestation phenomena; • Tanneries recover this waste, and that limiting such activity as a consequence of the EUDR’s application would have negative environmental effects, as the skins would have to be disposed of as waste and replaced with more polluting synthetic materials; • Under the rules of the EUDR, European tanneries, importing from 177 countries worldwide, will face the objectively impossible task of retrieving traceability data, thereby jeopardising their competitiveness and favouring non-EU producers, such as those in China, who are not subject to...