MEPs adopted by a large majority (536 votes in favour, 121 against and 36 abstentions) on Thursday 20 May an own-initiative report by Antonius Manders (EPP, Netherlands) calling for stronger EU rules on corporate environmental liability to reduce and prevent environmental damage.
Supported by all political groups except ID and the Conservatives (ECR), the report calls in particular for the transformation of the Environmental Liability Directive (2004/35) (ELD) into a regulation that would apply to all companies operating in the EU. The aim is to ensure that the rules can be applied in the same way throughout the Union.
“This directive has not yet been fully transposed into national legislation by all Member States [and] the way it is monitored also differs greatly”, Manders said in a debate the day before the vote.
Speaking on behalf of the ID group, Gilles Lebreton (French) said that the proposal to transform the directive into a regulation was too “radical” and would lead to “excessive centralisation”, without taking into account the specificities of Member States.
In addition, the report calls for an update of the EU Environmental Crime Directive (2008/99), (ECD) based on a thorough impact assessment, to take into account new types of environmental crime.
Parliament also asks to assess whether a mandatory financial security system for companies (covering for example insurance, bank guarantees, bonds or funds) could be introduced so that taxpayers do not have to bear the costs of environmental damage caused by companies.
“We also want to introduce chain liability so that there is no question of a small legal entity causing damage and then going bankrupt or being unable to be traced and the taxpayer having to pay for that damage”, Manders said.
The regulators also added that: “It is important to us that the managers of large companies who knowingly cause environmental damage for profit can also be held personally responsible”, giving the example of the Volkswagen managers after the Dieselgate scandal.
MEPs also called for the creation of a European working group on ELD to help Member States apply the directive and future legislation in a harmonised way, to exchange information on the situation in other countries and to provide advice to victims of environmental damage on legal remedies in the EU. It would be made up of experts and Commission staff, according to MEPs’ proposal.
They also believe that the mandate of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office should be extended to environmental offences.
Finally, the Parliament calls on the European Commission to explore the possibility of recognising ecocide in EU law and diplomacy, to clarify key legal terms in the context of the ELD and WFD and to develop a harmonised classification of environmental crimes. (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)