Lawmakers Back Watered-Down "Green Crime" Law
GERMANY: May 20, 2008
STRASBOURG - European Union lawmakers backed a watered-down law on "green
crime" on Monday that would make dumping toxic waste or illegally
transporting hazardous materials a criminal offence throughout the bloc.
The draft law obliges the EU's 27 member states to treat and punish as
criminal acts a list of nine offences ranging from harming protected plants
or species to unlawful trade in ozone-depleting substances.
But it does not set EU-wide sanctions to the dismay of environmentalists who
doubt it will have much impact.
"It is not as strong as we would have like to see it ... it does not lead to
the harmonisation of criminal law that would have helped prevent environment
crimes," said Regina Schneider, from the European Environmental Bureau, a
federation of more than 140 non-governmental environmental organisations.
"It is first step in right direction but no more," she said.
EU ambassadors are set to give the final green light to the text on
Wednesday, EU officials said, on the same day as the European Parliament is
scheduled to vote on it, after backing it in a parliamentary debate on
Monday.
The European Commission had originally proposed at least sentences of
between 5 and 10 years in jail for environmental crimes that killed or
seriously injured people, and fines of more than 1 million euros ($1.6
million) for companies involved.
It would have been the first time that EU-wide minimum sentences, which
already exist for terrorism and drugs trafficking, were applied to
environmental crimes.
But the bloc's top court ruled at the end of last year that the EU could not
specify the type and level of sanctions, EU Commissioner Jacques Barrot and
lawmakers said on Monday.
The text now only mentions "effective, proportionate and dissuasive criminal
penalties," with no details, something environment groups say will weaken
its impact.
Barrot and senior EU lawmakers said during a parliamentary debate on Monday
the law would have a deterrent effect.
"It still is a big step forward for environmental protection," EU lawmaker
Dan Jorgensen said on behalf of the assembly's environment committee. "The
big problem of EU environment policy is that it is not applied in EU
countries... this is what we may have well solved with this."
(Writing by Ingrid Melander in Brussels; Editing by William Schomberg and
Ibon Villelabeitia)
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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