ENVIRONMENT CRIMINAL LAW IN EUROPEAN UNION (English version)

Environment crime is among the European Union’s central concerns. The Tampere European Council of 15 and 16 October 1999 at which a first work programme for the European Union action in the field of Justice and Home Affairs was adopted asked that efforts be made to adopt common definitions of offences and penalties focusing on a number of especially important sectors, amongst them environment crime. But despite this agreement about the importance of joint the European Union action, environmental criminal law has become the centre of a serious institutional fight between the European Commission, supported by the European Parliament on the one hand and the Council, supported by the great majority of the European Union member states on the other hand. The Framework Decision 2003/80/JHA on the protection of the environment through criminal law builds substantively on the structure of the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of the Environment through Criminal Law. With one exception, offences are defined including the requirement of "unlawful" behavior, i.e. “infringing a law, an administrative regulation or a decision taken by a competent authority, including those giving effect to binding provisions of Community law aiming at the protection of the environment.” The Framework decisions obliges the European Union member states to establish jurisdiction whenever the offence was entirely or partly committed in their territory or on board of a ship or an aircraft registered in it or flying its flag and provides for further optional jurisdiction grounds. Because the fight between the European Commission and the Council about the possibility to include criminal-law related provisions in first pillar instruments, the Framework Decision 2003/80/JHA was not the appropriate legal instrument for provisions or environmental crime. This statement included significant changes for legislation. So, the European Parliament and the Council of European Union having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community and in particular Article 175(1) thereof, and to the opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee often consulting the Committee of the Regions, acting in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 251 of the Treaty have adopted the Directive 2008/99/EC of 19 November 2008 on the protection of the environment through criminal law, who obliges the European Union member states to provide for criminal penalties in their national legislation in respect of serious infringements of provisions of Community law on the protection of the environment.