EU Council sets fight against environmental crime as key priority for coming years

Environmental crime is taking centre stage in the EU’s fight against organised crime, with the 2026-2029 EMPACT cycle prioritising crackdowns on offences like waste crime and strengthening enforcement across Member States. This push is backed by a sweeping new Environmental Crime Directive (to be transposed by May 2026), which introduces new offences and tougher penalties, and aligns with the Council of Europe’s first binding treaty targeting environmental harm.

Background

The EU Policy Cycle for organised and serious international crime (commonly known as the “European Multidisciplinary Platform Against Criminal Threats” or EMPACT) was launched by the EU Council in 2010. EMPACT works in four-year cycles. Each cycle starts with an EU Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment (EU SOCTA), which highlights the most pressing threats and serves as an input for the Council conclusions that define EU crime priorities.

The 2025 EU SOCTA, drawn up by Europol, underpins the priorities for the 2026-2029 EMPACT cycle. It highlights seven key threats to EU’s internal security, including waste crimes in view of its “detrimental impact on the natural environment and economy, and on the health and safety of EU citizens”. Wildlife trafficking is also singled out, though not retained in the key threat list, with the EU being described as a “source, destination and transit hub for endemic wildlife trafficking”. The other six identified threats are cyber-attacks, online fraud schemes, (online) child sexual exploitation, migrant smuggling, drug trafficking, and firearms trafficking. 

Fight against environmental crimes identified as one of the priorities for the 2026-2029 EMPACT cycle

In line with the EU SOCTA, the Council has set, in conclusions issued on 13 June 2025, the fight against environmental crime as one of the key priorities of the next EMPACT cycle. It foresees the adoption of an operational action plan “to disrupt criminal networks and individuals involved in all forms of environmental criminal offences, with a specific focus on those involved in waste crime, which poses a critical threat by causing devastating effects on the environment, human health and the economies, and on those with a capability to infiltrate legal business structures or to set up their own companies or similar organisational structures as a mean to facilitate unlawful activities”.

The Council also calls on Member States, and Europol, to integrate the relevant actions developed within EMPACT into their security strategies and planning and allocate resources to support a common EU approach. The Commission is requested to improve the funding of EMPACT.

Broader context: EU Environmental Crime Directive and Council of Europe’s Convention on the Protection of the Environment through Criminal Law

This prioritisation of the fight against environmental crime in the next EMPACT cycle coincides with the requirement for Member States to transpose by 21 May 2026 the revised Environmental Crime Directive (ECD), adopted in 2024. 

The new Directive defines new environmental offences and new penalties that will need to apply across the EU. It also introduces measures to prevent and combat environmental crime and ensure effective enforcement of EU environmental law. A key objective of the revised ECD is to bolster prevention and deterrence strategies against environmental crime, ensuring that both businesses and individuals align themselves with practices that promote environmental sustainability. New environmental offences can be prosecuted both before criminal jurisdictions and administrative authorities.

At the international level, this Directive broadly aligns with the Convention on the Protection of the Environment through Criminal Law, adopted in the framework of the Council of Europe on 14 May 2025 and constituting the first legally binding international treaty dedicated to criminalising acts harming the environment.

Further information:

Environmental Crime Directive: EU introduces new offences and penalties

Council of Europe adopts first international convention on protection of environment through criminal law