Does the European Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) affect your business? The EUDR has been the subject of discussion in the aircraft parts community and is leading to questions about the compliance strategies that aviation companies should be taking.
Background
The EU is continuing to work with partner countries and companies to ensure a successful transition to deforestation-free supply chains. As part of this, the deforestation rule (EUDR) was promulgated to prevent the import of articles that are the product of a deforestation event.
The EUDR goes into effect on December 30, 2024, and Europeans are taking steps to prepare for the new rule. These steps include European companies sending messages to their non-European partners asking them to support compliance. If you get a note from a European partner about the new rule, then here are the things you need to know:
- The scope of the rule is limited and very few aircraft parts appear to be affected;
- If you are exporting a product that is potentially affected (see the chart below) then you will need to assess whether that product contains one of the relevant commodities (cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soy or wood);
- If you are exporting an affected product and it contains one of the relevant commodities then you will have an obligation to ensure the commodity is not sourced from land subject to deforestation after December 31, 2020.
What Products Are Affected?
The good news for the aviation community is that very little in our community can be affected by this new rule.
The scope of the rule is tied to Combined Nomenclature (CN) codes. CN codes are analogous to the harmonized tariff codes used in other countries. The new rule will affect products whose CN code falls into one of the listed categories (found in annex I to the new rule), but only when the relevant product contains, has been fed with, or has been made using one of the following: cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soy or wood.
We thus will start with the CN codes. This is important because many aircraft parts are under CN codes that are not affected by the new rule, so the fact that they are made from an affected commodity (like rubber) will not matter when their CN code is not subject to the rule..
The categories most likely to affect the aircraft parts community include:
| CN Code | Product |
| 4011 | New pneumatic tires, of rubber |
| 4012 | Retreaded or used pneumatic tires of rubber; solid or cushion tires, tire treads and tire flaps, of rubber |
| 4013 | Rubber inner tubes |
| 4016 | Other articles of vulcanised rubber other than hard rubber, not elsewhere specified in chapter 40 |
| 4017 | Hard rubber (e.g. ebonite) in all forms including waste and scrap; articles of hard rubber |
| 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) |
| 4417 | Tools, tool bodies, tool handles, broom or brush bodies and handles, of wood; boot or shoe lasts and trees, of wood |
| 49xx | Printed books, newspapers, pictures and other products of the printing industry, manuscripts, typescripts and plans, of paper |
Note that this is not a complete list of affected products (for example, leather or rubber that is used as a raw material is likely to be covered under this new rule). If you want to look at the entire list then you can find it in annex I of the EUDR rule, or you can find a reproduction of Annex I here, on duracert’s website. It is worth noting that an aircraft part that is imported as an aircraft part under CN heading 8807 will not be affected by this new rule because it falls under a CN code that is not listed.
Are There Affected Aircraft Parts?
There will be some aircraft parts that could be affected by the EUDR. They key will be the CN code that applies to the parts. For example, O-rings made of rubber may fall within heading HTSUS 4016 under U.S. law (the link is to a U.S. Customs ruling distinguishing synthetic rubber O-rings from those made of plastics). This means that they are likely to also fall within CN Code 4016 under EU law, which is within the scope of the deforestation regulation.
Be careful to classify your article correctly! One of the U.S. customs rulings specifies that O-rings made of Viton and silicone were not rubber products and fell within HTSUS heading 3926 (the corollary CN Code would be outside of the scope of the EUDR.
Other articles that could be classified under the rubber headings include neoprene rubber plugs which are likely to fall within heading 4016.
[NOTE: the links in this section are all to US Customs rulings; these are not binding on EU CN Code classifications, but they are analogous so they are used to demonstrate the scope of particles that could be classified under the deforestation regulations ]
What if I am Exporting a Relevant Product to the Europe Union?
If you discover that you are exporting a relevant product to the EU, and that the relevant product contains one of the affected commodities, then you will have an obligation to ensure that the relevant product does not contain (and was not made from) affected commodities that were produced on land subject to deforestation after 31 December, 2020.