Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-04-08-Speech-1-087"
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"en.20020408.7.1-087"2
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"Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating Mr Di Lello Finuoli and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten on their excellent work on uniting efforts to create instruments that will enable us to combat the increasing volume and the frequent cross-border effects of crimes against the environment. I must also highlight a recent survey published by Eurobarometer, which confirms that the environment, together with security, health and unemployment, is one of the main issues of concern to the citizens of the European Union. We therefore have an obligation to help to find solutions that can respond to these concerns and that can guarantee the protection of the environment and of our citizens’ health, in an attempt to improve the quality of everyone’s life.
We have, on the one hand, an initiative presented by Denmark in 2000 with a view to adopting a Council framework decision on combating serious crimes against the environment, which proposes that Member States adopt joint measures to protect the environment under criminal law, including effective investigations and prosecutions, and effective cooperation in police, criminal and administrative matters, in other words to establish an acquis in the field of criminal sanctions against environmental crimes. On the other hand, we have a Commission initiative from 2001 with a view to producing a directive on the protection of the environment through criminal law on the basis of Article 175 of the EC Treaty. This proposal is intended to apply to activities that breach Community legislation on environmental protection and/or rules adopted by Member States to complement such legislation.
We must commend the strategy pursued by both the rapporteurs, Mr Di Lello Finuoli and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, of attempting to make the two reports as consistent as possible, thereby enabling the European Parliament’s position on the two initiatives to be clear and coherent. They both seek to give a clear indication of Parliament’s unequivocal preference for the Commission’s approach, in other words, for the adoption of a first-pillar instrument, because legislating on environmental matters falls within Community competence. It would be appropriate at this point, however, to point out that criminal law is not the exclusive responsibility of the European Union. By this I mean that the issue here is that the current system of sanctions is not sufficient to guarantee compliance with Community law, and this being the case, it is crucial that minimum rules are guaranteed, requiring the existence of effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions, with the adoption of more rigorous rules and sanctions in this field nevertheless remaining at the discretion of the Member States."@en1
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