European Union lawmakers backed a watered-down law on "green crime" on Monday that would make dumping toxic waste or illegally transporting hazardous materials a criminal offence throughout the bloc. The draft law obliges the EU's 27 member states to treat and punish as criminal acts a list of nine offences ranging from harming protected plants or species to unlawful trade in ozone-depleting substances. But it does not set EU-wide sanctions to the dismay of environmentalists who doubt it will have much impact. "It is not as strong as we would have like to see it ... it does not lead to the harmonisation of criminal law that would have helped prevent environment crimes," said Regina Schneider, from the European Environmental Bureau, a federation of more than 140 non-governmental environmental organisations. "It is first step in right direction but no more," she said. EU ambassadors are set to give the final green light to the text on Wednesday, EU officials said, on the same day as the European Parliament is scheduled to vote on it, after backing it in a parliamentary debate on Monday. The European Commission had originally proposed at least sentences of between 5 and 10 years in jail for environmental crimes that killed or seriously injured people, and fines of more than 1 million euros ($1.6 million) for companies involved. It would have been the first time that EU-wide minimum sentences, which already exist for terrorism and drugs trafficking, were applied to environmental crimes. But the bloc's top court ruled at the end of last year that the EU could not specify the type and level of sanctions, EU Commissioner Jacques Barrot and lawmakers said on Monday. The text now only mentions "effective, proportionate and dissuasive criminal penalties," with no details, something environment groups say will weaken its impact. Barrot and senior EU lawmakers said during a parliamentary debate on Monday the law would have a deterrent effect. "It still is a big step forward for environmental protection," EU lawmaker Dan Jorgensen said on behalf of the assembly's environment committee. "The big problem of EU environment policy is that it is not applied in EU countries... this is what we may have well solved with this." (Writing by Ingrid Melander in Brussels; Editing by William Schomberg and Ibon Villelabeitia) REUTERS NEWS SERVICE Certified Non-Rain Forest Palm Oil Set For Germany -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mail this story to a friend | Printer friendly version GERMANY: May 20, 2008 BERLIN - The first consignments of palm oil, certified as produced using farming which has not involve destroying tropical rain forests, will arrive in Germany in the second half of this year, the German edible oil industry association OVID said on Monday. But palm oil certified under the programme Round Table for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) could be up to 10 percent more expensive than non-certified oil, OVID Chairman Wilhelm Thywissen told a press conference. However, it was not yet possible to make an accurate forecast of the price difference. Asian and South American countries have been criticised by environmentalists for expanding palm oil production by cutting down tropical rain forests, in a controversy which has also been felt by industrial palm oil buyers in Europe and elsewhere. "We are vehemently against tropical rain forests being destroyed in producing countries for cultivation of oilseeds," Thywissen said. The European Union is discussing a programme to prevent palm oil produced on former rainforest land being used for EU biofuels production, but the RSPO would apply to both food and biofuel industries, he said. The RSPO was established in 2004 on the initiative of environmental pressure group World Wildlife Fund, bringing palm oil industry and consumers together. Juergen Keil, from the German unit of giant US commodity group Cargill, said the first consignments of certified palm oil for Germany this year were likely to come from Asia, probably Malaysia, Indonesia or Papua New Guinea. Cargill, among the world's largest vegetable oil and oilseeds traders, was working to certify its own Asian palm oil plantations and was encouraging its supplies to participate, he said. He would not comment on the likely volumes of certified palm oil likely to arrive, but said he hoped they would be significant. Along with the costs of certification, certified palm oil would face substantial additional expense such as being transported and stored separately from other palm oil. Some observers have doubts whether Germany's food processing industry will be willing to pay more for such certified products at a time when the country's giant discount supermarket chains are involved in an intense price war to attract customers into their shops. But OVID Chief Executive Petra Sprick said the association believed there will be considerable interest in the palm oil even at a time of intense retail price pressure. A major European processor, Unilever has already publicly stated it would use it, and she hoped others would follow. When the certified oil is actually available, food processors would also be able to label their products as using ingredients only produced from sustainable farming. "We firmly believe that these products will receive increased consumer demand," said Keil. "We believe a momentum will be generated which will create a transformation of the global supply system." The palm oil initiative follows another voluntary agreement, the Round Table on Responsible Soy, which the oilseeds industry claims has put a virtual stop to destruction of tropical rain forest in Brazil for soybean cultivation. (Editing by Ben Tan) Story by Michael Hogan REUTERS NEWS SERVICE