Activities of Frances FITZGERALD related to 2020/2027(INI)
Shadow opinions (1)
OPINION on the liability of companies for environmental damage
Amendments (7)
Amendment 6 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Recalls that the global rise in environmental criminality is a growing threat to the achievement of the UN’s 2030 Agenda; calls for the recognition of the right to a healthy and sustainable environment at the UN level; Recalls that due diligence is primarily a preventative mechanism and companies should be first and foremost required to identify risks or adverse impacts and adopt policies and measures to address them; emphasises that if an undertaking causes or contributes to an adverse impact it should provide for a remedy and should be subject to corporate accountability for such impacts; stresses that corporate accountability, including for harms linked to an undertaking’s operations, is necessary to ensure undertakings are incentivised to undertake due diligence and for due diligence to be effective;
Amendment 20 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Urges the EU to make the fight against environmental crime an overriding strategic political priority in international judicial cooperation and for the EU institutions and COPs, notably by promoting compliance with MEAs through the adoption ofwith the potential for criminal sanctions, through exchanges of best practices and by promoting the enlargement of the scope of the International Criminal Court to cover criminal acts that amount to ecocideworking with the International Criminal Court through its power of investigation to advance inquiries into corporate complicity resulting in widespread environmental destruction;
Amendment 31 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Recalls that the Environmental Liability Directive (ELD) is crucial to the implementation of the ‘polluter pays’ principle; deplores the fact that liability rules have largely not been applied in some Member States and are unable to fulfil their compensatorecovery and preventive functions;
Amendment 39 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Highlights the barriers to holding companies liaresponsible for environmental harm, such as the regime of limited liability, insolvency, barriers to access to justice, latency and causal uncertaintyincluding insolvency for example, can be reduced through common application of co-existing criminal, civil or administrative proceedings;
Amendment 51 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Notes that some companies may abuse their limiseek to establish separated liabilityegal entities to invest in hazardous industries through separate legal entities, in order to externalise environmental costs; recalls the governance gap in global value chains, thereby limiting their legal and public relations exposure; calls foron the scope of strict liability to be extended to parent companies to avoid the risk of moral hazardCommission to assess whether it would be appropriate to introduce parental and chain liability for damage caused to environment;
Amendment 54 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Calls for the examination of the development of mandatory solvency guarantees to cover the ELD liabilities of companies in the event of insolvency and to search for an optimal mix between future EU legislation on mandatory environmental due diligence, and administrative, civil and criminal enforcement regimes aiming to address environmental harm, including administrative measures, financial penalties and in some cases criminal prosecution as potential remedies;
Amendment 62 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Stresses the need to improve access to justice for victims of environmental harm, i.e. through collective actions and redress mechanisms, primarily under a binding and enforceable UN treaty on business and human rights; calls on the Union and its Member States to push for the creation of an international independent authority in the field of environmental liability.