The European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) adopted unanimously (22 votes), on Tuesday 21 March, its position on the revision of the Directive on the protection of the environment through criminal law (2008/99/EC). All the compromise amendments were adopted.
The text, put forward by MEP Antonius Manders (EPP, Dutch), aims to strengthen the EU’s rules on cracking down on environmental crime. It thus extends the list of offences within the European Community and provides new legal definitions for serious environmental crimes in the EU, which would include ecocide.
MEPs also foresee stricter sentences for offenders. In this sense, the report goes further than the proposal for a directive adopted by the European Commission in December 2021 (see EUROPE 12854/17), which responded to the observation made in 2020 of the shortcomings of the current directive in the face of the growing number of environmental criminal offences.
Where these are committed by companies, MEPs called for fines of at least 10% of average worldwide turnover in the previous three financial years, rather than the 5% set by the Commission. In line with the polluter pays principle, the convicted companies would have to “bear the full costs of their damage and restore the environment accordingly”, said Mr Manders.
On this point, the shadow rapporteur Franco Roberti (S&D, Italian) also spoke: “Where serial polluters are not discouraged from profiting at the expense of the planet, we need to punish them”.
The JURI Committee also took a position on sanctions for natural and legal persons. Offences resulting in death or substantial health and environmental damage should be punishable by at least ten years imprisonment.
“There can be no more excuses when it comes to environmental crime”, said Antonius Manders after the vote. Negotiations with the Member States (see EUROPE 12968/11) and the Commission are now expected to begin. (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)