Antonius MANDERS (EPP, NL), rapporteur, holds a press conference on the Environmental crime directive. Parliament is set to approve new rules aiming to protect the environment in the EU through criminal law. Following a debate on Monday, MEPs are expected to give their final green light to a new directive on environmental crime, as agreed with the member states in November 2023, on Tuesday. The new law provides an updated list of environmental crimes including illegal timber trade, depletion of water resources or breaches of EU chemicals legislation. It also introduces the so-called qualified offence of causing the destruction of an ecosystem, such as large-scale forest fires, and thus comparable to ecocide. Individual offenders, including company representatives, can face prison sentences of up to five or ten years depending on the severity of the crime. This transcription is a result of an automatic process. Please check against delivery.

Strasbourg

press conference

environmental protection (T)

MANDERS, Antonius (EPP, NL)

European Green Deal (T)

biodiversity strategy (T)

Press conference by Antonius MANDERS (EPP, NL), rapporteur on the Environmental crime directive

SOUNDBITE (English), Antonius MANDERS (EPP, NL), Rapporteur, Thank you very much. Well, just to elaborate a little bit on what we voted today. It's the first time in Criminal Law that we introduce some dynamics. That's one. Normally in criminal law, every article has to describe the offence exactly, because people have to know what they do wrong. But now we introduced, also, a dynamic approach. And I will explain it to you later.

SOUNDBITE (English), Antonius MANDERS (EPP, NL), Rapporteur, Environmental crimes is in the top five of the most profitable crimes in Europe and perhaps all over the world. And, we spend around, the GDP of Portugal per year in Europe to actually to clean the pollution. And every environmental crime starts actually in a company. That doesn't mean that there are so many companies who are, misbehaving. No, there are just a few of them, because they want to get rid of their leftovers. And sometimes it's cheaper to ask an organisation to dump it somewhere.

SOUNDBITE (English), Antonius MANDERS (EPP, NL), Rapporteur, I'm inspired, very inspired by the movie. You know it. Perhaps you have seen him already. The movie Dark Waters on Netflix, it's about DuPont and it took 20 years, to get a civil law. To get a, let's say, a compensation for the damage. It's a very interesting movie. I also experience myself a case. The crisis in 2001 where, sugar water was, poisoned with, with hormones. And they sold it in Belgium, and they put it in ice cream and everybody use it. And then later on in animal foods, and it causes a huge damage. And then the governments didn't want to do a proper investigation. And the same we have seen in the Dark Waters case, that the government didn't want to do a proper investigation.

SOUNDBITE (English), Antonius MANDERS (EPP, NL), Rapporteur, So, I'm happy that in the future, if this adopted version, this legislation will be implemented within two years, and the Member States that at least we can hold the CEOs of these companies, personal, liable at, criminal courts. That doesn't mean that we have to build a lot of prisons, but it means that we introduce prevention. That means that we introduced, precautionary principle. That means that we introduced the duty of care.

SOUNDBITE (English), Antonius MANDERS (EPP, NL), Rapporteur, And I convinced when I was talking in the trialogue, the Council didn't want to have this dynamic approach and then they asked the Spanish Presidency of the Council at that I time I said, I have a permit, and that's a permit. I explained how the permit defence. I told him I have a permit to drive 100km an hour on a highway. Fine. That's my authorisation. So then I see some children playing on the highway. I am allowed them because I have a permit to drive 100km an hour. And then the, the Ambassador said, no, of course not. I said, am I done allowed to drive 80km an hour? No, he said, even you have to stand still to avoid an accident with his children. And I said, that's exactly what we want to achieve with this dynamic approach of the permit defence.

SOUNDBITE (English), Antonius MANDERS (EPP, NL), Rapporteur, For example, we have rules in the Netherlands. They have a permit to do some pollution, let's say illegal pollution with PFAS. And now, 20 years later, it seems that PFAS is causing cancer and causing deaths. Can they then still go on with polluting because they have a permit? According to this new law, this cannot be the case anymore. But it's always a judge who have to decide. And, we live in and we live in a society where the rule of states is governing. So, judges do have the power, according to the facts, to take CEOs or let's say, individuals, legal persons, to court, based on the facts and to send them to jail, yes or no.

SOUNDBITE (English), Antonius MANDERS (EPP, NL), Rapporteur, At the end, this will lead to more prevention, less pollution. And I hope, less, that's because of pollution to human beings. So, the permits defence that's now more dynamic. There was a professor on the university of my sect, who said, this is really revolutionary that this is introduced in the criminal law at European level. So and it's good if an expert tells us that. I'm happy that we had a huge, support on all Political parties in the Committee here in LIBE, also in the trialogue, and I think we achieved 80% of what the Parliament wants.

SOUNDBITE (English), Antonius MANDERS (EPP, NL), Rapporteur, What we didn't get was the EPPO. We were actually fighting for a European Public Prosecutor in environmental crimes, but the Council didn't want that. That's a pity, because especially when we talk about cross-border crimes, then they should be some authority who coordinates the two countries and the two public prosecutors in the different countries, but, well, that was blocked by the Council, and we have to accept that.

SOUNDBITE (English), Antonius MANDERS (EPP, NL), Rapporteur, Then there was something else. That was, the penalties we wanted to, to link it to competition law. So, the maximum fine, in our view, should be the same to give legal clarity. And that's, 10% of the yearly turnover. But also the Council in this case didn't want to have this. And they maximised the fine until 40 million. And what is strange then. In our view it is not fair to do so because for a company like Shell or DuPont or Pfizer or what else, 40 million is nothing. It's drinking money. But for Renesmee, 40 million, is a lot. And it's even can cause, bankruptcy.

SOUNDBITE (English), Antonius MANDERS (EPP, NL), Rapporteur, Well, what can I add more? Polluter pays. CEOs responsible. Natural illegal persons. Dynamic approach. Every two years, the Commission selects new environmental crimes and the attitude they will add it to the list of the offences in this report, in this legislation. And that's good because then, we have also the modern types of crimes. We keep it in to criminalise this. Then what else? No, I think. Well, perhaps we can start and to open the floor for questions, because it's a very interesting case. It's criminal law. So, nobody is interested. That's strange because everybody want to to get criminals into jails. We don't want that. We don't want to build prisons, but we want to have a preventive approach in each enterprise. And that's good if that, will be the case in the future.

Q&A, Question regarding on punishments of envirionmental criminal laws

SOUNDBITE (English), Antonius MANDERS (EPP, NL), Rapporteur, -

Q&A, Question regarding on application to farmers. -