Ethiopia Moves to Establish Working Group for Europe Coffee Export Compliance
BaseLine Team
13 Aug, 2025
The Ministry of Finance and the Ethiopian Coffee & Tea Authority have agreed to set up a dedicated Working Group to coordinate Ethiopia’s preparations for meeting the European Union’s Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) requirements for coffee exports.
The decision came during a high-level meeting today with representatives from government agencies, development partners, coffee farmers’ cooperatives and unions, exporters, and coffee buyers’ associations, including GIZ, the German Embassy, and UNDP.
According to Semereta Sewasew, state minister for Finance, the proposed Working Group will serve as a central platform for resolving challenges, aligning efforts, and ensuring Ethiopia’s coffee supply chain meets both the EUDR’s sustainability criteria and global market expectations.
With the EUDR compliance deadline at the end of 2025, participants agreed to accelerate these preparations by strengthening ECTA’s institutional capacity and mobilizing greater technical and financial support from partners.
Adugna Debela (PhD), director general of the Authority, announced that one of the Working Group’s first tasks will be centralizing all geolocation data in the Authority's national system. A forthcoming directive will require regional authorities and associations to submit collected data for validation before it is made accessible to European buyers.
