EU justice ministers met in Luxembourg on Thursday 13 October to review the progress of several ongoing legislative initiatives and support for Ukraine (see other news). In a public session, they returned to the issue of environmental protection through criminal law.
The second part of the directive is still in the hands of the working group on judicial cooperation in criminal matters (COPEN). Agreement has been reached on maximum penalties for natural persons committing environmental offences (see EUROPE 13030/3), but the question of fines for legal persons remains unresolved.
The Austrian and Luxembourg ministers took the floor to defend the European Commission’s approach, which is to link the amount of the fine to the global turnover of the company committing an environmental infringement.
The Slovenian minister called for more flexibility in setting the amounts.
European Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders insisted on the importance of keeping turnover as a benchmark to “be able to impose sufficiently dissuasive fines”.
This point will have to be discussed further in a working group, but the Czech Republic’s minister for justice, Pavel Blažek, who chairs the EU Council, wants to reach an agreement in principle (‘general approach’) in December.
Digitalisation of justice. At their meeting on 9 December, the ministers also want to announce an agreement in principle on two texts of the ‘digitalisation of justice’ package (see EUROPE 12844/12). This is the regulation and directive to digitise cross-border judicial cooperation (see EUROPE 13023/7).
Under the French Presidency of the EU Council, in June, Member States already reached political agreement (‘general approach’) on the other two texts of the package (see EUROPE 12968/9).
Electronic evidence. Here too, “good news could be announced in December”, predicted Pavel Blažek. Agreement was reached on the “key elements” of the e-evidence regulation and directive in June (see EUROPE 12981/14), but several technical details still need to be finalised (see EUROPE 13014/11).
Liability for artificial intelligence. Commissioner Didier Reynders presented to the ministers the proposal for a directive on liability for artificial intelligence (AI) (see EUROPE 13031/10) as well as the proposal for a revision of the product liability directive. The text should facilitate access to redress for users of AI systems who suffer damage.
Assignment of claims. “I have no good news to give you”, warned Didier Reynders regarding the interinstitutional negotiations on the law applicable to the enforceability of assignments of claims. Discussions are in fact on hold, as the positions of the co-legislators are too far apart. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)