Combatting waste crime

The report of Eurojust in 2014 came to the following overall conclusions:

• Environmental crime, in particular when it contains cross-border elements, needs to be treated as serious crime.
• Due to the high profits generated, the relatively low risk of detection, and rather lenient penalties it is also often linked to organized crime, in particular illegal trafficking or dumping of waste.
• These crimes pose great risks to the environment and the wellbeing of human beings and undermine, in their organised forms, the rule of law and sustainable development.
• As in other serious and organised crime areas, the profits generated are significant and serve as the main motive for committing such offences. Therefore, asset tracing, freezing and confiscation should be applied on a more general and systematic basis.
• The complex legislative framework and its implementation require specialist knowledge, both through the involvement of independent experts and through expertise within law enforcement and prosecutorial personnel.
• The involvement of a broad range of national authorities, e.g. from customs officers to veterinary experts - demonstrates that a multidisciplinary approach and organised and systematic inter-agency collaboration and coordination are essential at national, European and at international level.
• The applicable penalties for environmental offences differ significantly between the Member States. Their deterrent effect is insufficient and therefore not 'effective, proportionate and dissuasive'.
• As legislation is not harmonized in this area, in particular in terms of penalties, Member States often struggle to use coercive investigative techniques similar to those in other serious crime areas.
• The sharing of best practice and of expertise is essential in environmental cross-border cases and intelligence gathering should become automatic in this field. Europol’s expertise could be ‘explored’ within this framework at EU level.
• The added value of Eurojust’s assistance needs to be better known among practitioners working in this field of law. Coordination of investigations and prosecutions should be carried out on a more regular basis through the early involvement of the agency and more systematic use could be made of JITs, coordination meetings and coordination centres in cross-border environmental cases.