Six years ago the EU pledged to stem the destruction of the world’s forests — and thus take a major step towards halting climate change — by the sheer might of its regulatory power.

With the bloc importing 30 per cent of the world’s coffee and 60 per cent of global cacao production, the architects of the new rules banked on the so-called “Brussels effect”. Coffee growers in Brazil or rubber glove manufacturers in Malaysia would comply — and think twice about clearing trees for crops — just to gain access to the EU’s 450mn consumers.

But as objections to the deforestation regulation from industry and commodity producing countries grew louder, the European Commission pushed back the deadline for the rules to come into force. Then the EU pushed them back again until December 2026.