On Monday 8 February, the European Commission launched a public consultation on the revision of the 2008 Environmental Crime Directive, scheduled for the 4th quarter of 2021.
The directive was evaluated in 2019 and 2020 and the Commission concluded that it did not meet its objectives. The results, published in October 2020, do indeed show that, overall, the directive has not had much effect on the number of convictions or on the level of sanctions imposed in the Member States.
The Commission considers that the scope of the Directive, the types and levels of sanctions, the provisions on judicial cooperation, on organised crime, on the collection of statistical data and the practical application of the law should be revised.
According to the inception impact assessment, published in early December, it is considering several options, namely: - take no further action at EU level; - repeal the Directive and leave it to Member States to decide how best to deal with environmental infringements in their country: - amend the Directive to include specific provisions aimed at improving certain provisions; - a combination of legislative and non-legislative actions to provide more detailed guidance.
Interested parties have until 4 May to send their comments, see: http://bit.ly/3aNJ9e8 (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)