Reported leather exclusion from EU deforestation rules eases burden on Italian tanneries

Leather removed from regulatory scope

Leather has reportedly been excluded from the European Union’s deforestation regulation, easing concern among Italian tanneries over requirements that industry representatives said would be difficult to implement. The development was discussed by political and local officials during an interview with Radio Lady, according to Italian publication gonews.it.

The change matters particularly to the leather district around Santa Croce sull’Arno in Tuscany. The district employs about 8,000 people and has estimated annual revenue of €4 billion. It processes a substantial volume of hides sourced abroad, making access to imported raw material central to its operations.

Deborah Bergamini, deputy national secretary of Forza Italia, said the regulation would have subjected the tanning industry to additional administrative procedures, restrictions and prohibitions. She argued that these obligations could have made continued tannery operations impracticable. Bergamini credited efforts involving Member of the European Parliament Salvatore De Meo and Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who wrote to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen seeking the removal of leather from the regulation.

Animal-level traceability raised practical concerns

The main disputed obligation concerned tracing hides back to the animal and geolocating its origin. Santa Croce sull’Arno Mayor Roberto Giannoni said this would have been practically impossible for tanneries because hides are a by-product of slaughter. In his account, livestock farmers had little incentive to provide downstream leather processors with detailed information about the location of individual farms and animals.

That gap in the supply chain posed a particular challenge for imported hides. Giannoni said foreign material represents an important and majority share of the hides processed in the district. If Italian companies could not obtain the required origin information, they risked losing access to overseas supplies even when the hides were generated as by-products of meat production.

The reported exclusion therefore removes a potential compliance barrier for importers, processors and their suppliers. It could also avoid the cost of building traceability systems around information that tanneries do not currently control. The source did not provide an estimate of those costs or specify the legal instrument and implementation timetable through which the exclusion was secured.

Relief does not remove pressure from weak fashion demand

Local representatives presented the development as protection for both companies and employment. Giannoni said defending access to hides was necessary to protect the district’s 8,000 workers, while Nicola Nascosti of Forza Italia described the outcome as the product of cooperation between local tanning representatives and political officials in Rome and Brussels.

The regulatory relief does not resolve the industry’s wider commercial difficulties. Giannoni pointed to weakness in the fashion market and the need to encourage final consumers to continue buying leather products. A slowdown in fashion demand can affect orders across the chain, from hide traders and tanneries to manufacturers of footwear, bags and other finished goods.

Industry representatives also stressed that tanneries process material left over from slaughter rather than driving slaughter solely for leather. That position underpins their argument that leather should not face the same deforestation-related treatment as products whose production directly determines land use. For European processors, the immediate significance is narrower but concrete: the reported exclusion preserves access to imported hides and avoids an animal-level documentation requirement that the Tuscan district regarded as unworkable.