Environmental Crime Directive assessment: Small step for legal consequences, big step for political change

In early December, the EU Council and the European Parliament’s JURI committee approved the Environmental Crime Directive agreement reached during trilogue negotiations, which now only needs to be rubber-stamped before becoming law.

While revision of this law has been a major symbolic win, showing that the EU finally understands the extent of the damage caused by environmental crime, the final legal provisions are hit and miss. The EEB assesses the law to better understand what it can achieve in practice.