Illegal logging – Photo by Ross
(BRUSSELS) – The EU Council formally adopted Wednesday a new law to protect the environment through criminal law, to improve the investigation and prosecution of environmental crime offences.
The directive, which replaces a previous law dating back to 2008, establishes EU-wide minimum rules on the definition of criminal offences and penalties.
The law will only apply to offences committed within the EU. However, member states are able to choose to extend their jurisdiction to offences that have been committed outside their territory.
The definition of criminal offences are increased from nine to 20. New offences include timber trafficking, the illegal recycling of polluting components of ships and serious breaches of legislation on chemicals.
The new law introduces a qualified offence clause which applies when an offence referred to in the directive is committed intentionally and causes the destruction of or irreversible or long-lasting damage to the environment.
Intentional offences which cause the death of a person will be punishable with a maximum prison sentence of at least ten years (member states may decide to provide for even tougher penalties in their national legislation).
Other offences will result in emprisonment of up to five years. The maximum prison sentence for qualified offences will be at least eight years.
Fines for companies will be at least 5% of the total worldwide turnover for the most serious offences or alternatively 40 million. For all other offences, the maximum fine will be at least 3% of turnover or alternatively 24 million.
Member states will have to make sure that natural persons and companies may be sanctioned by additional measures such as an obligation for the offender to reinstate the environment or compensate for the damage, excluding them from access to public funding or withdrawing their permits or authorisations.
Member states have two years from the entry into force of the directive to adapt their national rules to the directive.
Directive on the protection of the environment through criminal law, 13 March 2024
