European Law - Criminal sanctions for polluters and for destruction of natural habitats

Criminal sanctions for polluters

EU wants criminal sanctions for environmental transgressors, including those who destroy natural protected areas.

In January 2008 Total SA was fined €375,000 (the maximum) for the ecological damage caused by the sinking of the Erika oil-tanker off the French coast in December 1999. Now the EU wants to impose criminal sanctions on environmental lawbreakers, meaning that in future they could face jail for deliberate or negligent action that causes injury to people, air, soil, water, plants or animals.

The aim of the proposed legislation is to make polluters and other actors punishable across the EU for illegal activities that seriously damage the environment. At the moment not all EU countries have criminal sanctions. The new legislation would force countries that currently only fine offenders to apply "effective, proportionate and dissuasive" criminal penalties. It would also mean that polluters and offenders could no longer profit from differences in national law.  
 
Up to each country to decide on penalties
 
The European Parliament Report makes some amendments to the Commission's original proposal to bring it into line with an October 2007 Court of Justice ruling that the EU can require member states to introduce criminal penalties to combat serious pollution, but can't decide on the type and level of criminal sanctions - that is up to each country.
 
"We have decisively improved this proposal for the first European penal law. With this compromise everybody can know which environmental offences can lead to criminal law consequences," said rapporteur German Christian Democrat Hartmut Nassauer, Member of the European Parliament.  

Link to the Report

http://www.europarl.europa.eu//oeil/file.jsp?id=5445232