Welcome to Better Europe's weekly update on EU Affairs. CUTTING THROUGH RED TAPE, OR JUST CUTTING TREES? Just months before the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) takes effect, conservative MEPs are already pushing to prune it. Earlier this week, the Parliament’s environment committee backed an EPP-led resolution calling for a new “negligible risk” country category, designed to spare most EU countries from the regulation’s strict controls. The non-binding text, passed with the help of far-right groups, urges the Commission to rethink its risk classification, currently based on 2020 data. But critics say the move reeks of political convenience. “Hypocritical,” said Green MEP Thomas Waitz, noting that the same parties had fought hard against a forest monitoring law that would have provided more up-to-date data in the first place. The Commission says…