EU Environmental Crime Directive
Introduction
Environmental criminal law has gone through a spectacular evolution in Europe in the past 30 years, leading to its establishment as an autonomous legal field. The process of overcoming the administrative dependence of criminal law in the area of environmental protection by offering an independent legal toolbox for environmental goods and ecological values resulted in the adoption of the Directive 2008/99/EU on the protection of the environment through criminal law after a long and thorny path.
The main difficulty in adopting such a piece of legislation was the disagreement of the European institutions as regards its legal basis. Namely, in 2003 the Council had adopted a Framework Decision on the protection of the environment through criminal law, with the intent to harmonise legislation of Member States in the field. Arguing that the protection of the environment was a first pillar objective, the Commission challenged the legality of the legal basis of this Framework Decision before the Court of Justice. In Case C-176/03 Commission v Council the CJEU upheld the opinion of the Commission and annulled the aforementioned Decision, highlighting that the fact that the Community did not enjoy any direct power in the field of criminal law did not prevent the Community itself from taking measures which relate to criminal law of Member States, when the application of effective, proportionate and dissuasive criminal penalties is needed for combating serious environmental offences and given the essential character of environmental protection as a Community objective (para. 48).
In 2008 the Environmental Crime Directive was finally adopted, with the aim of establishing measures relating to criminal law in order to protect the environment more effectively (Article 1). Under the Directive, nine environmental crimes are considered criminal offences, when unlawful and committed intentionally or with at least serious negligence (Article 3) or in cases of inciting, aiding and abetting the intentional conduct referred to in Article 3 (Article 4).