Answer given by Mr Reynders on behalf of the European Commission
3.5.2021
1. The Commission agrees that directive 2008/99/EC on the protection of the environment through criminal law is not sufficiently effective and that this concerns also waste crime. This is the result from an evaluation conducted in 2019/20. The lack of practical application in the Member States contributes largely to the directive not meeting its objectives. As announced in its work programme for 2021[1], the Commission decided to review the directive[2] by December 2021 tackling the various shortcomings.
2. The Commission will soon publish a study[3] estimating the revenues generated on the nine main criminal markets in the EU, including illicit waste. For 2019, the estimate amounts up to EUR 188 billion.
3. With respect to the programming period 2014 to 2020, funding for projects can be provided from the instruments implemented in shared management, such as the European Regional and Development Fund (ERDF) and the Cohesion Fund, until the end of 2023. Generally, during the first half of the period, EU payments tend to be low. This is due to the nature of the investments, which have a long start-up phase (planning, programming, authorisations) without significant financial execution. Further, the regulatory provisions of the 2014-2020 period (e.g. N+3 rule, the level of pre-financing) have not provided incentives to a fast implementation in Member States. By end-2020, the full amount planned for household waste management was allocated to selected projects. Their implementation is ongoing: the expenditure declared by the project beneficiaries reached 36% of the total amount planned.