Article 3 › 2

Member States shall ensure that the following conduct constitutes a criminal offence where it is unlawful and intentional: (a) the discharge, emission or introduction of a quantity of materials or substances, energy or ionising radiation, into air, soil or water which causes or is likely to cause the death of, or serious injury to, any person or substantial damage to the quality of air, soil or water, or substantial damage to an ecosystem, animals or plants; (b) the placing on the market, in breach of a prohibition or another requirement aimed at protecting the environment, of a product the use of which on a larger scale, namely the use of the product by several users, regardless of their number, results in the discharge, emission or introduction of a quantity of materials or substances, energy or ionising radiation into air, soil or water and causes or is likely to cause the death of, or serious injury to, any person or substantial damage to the quality of air, soil or water, or substantial damage to an ecosystem, animals or plants; (c) the manufacture, placing or making available on the market, export or use of substances, whether on their own, in mixtures or in articles, including their incorporation into articles, where such conduct causes or is likely to cause the death of, or serious injury to, any person, substantial damage to the quality of air, soil or water, or substantial damage to an ecosystem, animals or plants and: (i) is restricted pursuant to Title VIII of and Annex XVII to Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council (18); (ii) is prohibited pursuant to Title VII of Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006; (iii) is not in compliance with Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council (19); (iv) is not in compliance with Regulation (EU) No 528/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council (20); (v) is not in compliance with Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council (21); or (vi) is prohibited pursuant to Annex I to Regulation (EU) 2019/1021 of the European Parliament and of the Council (22); (d) the manufacture, use, storage, import or export of mercury, mercury compounds, mixtures of mercury, and mercury-added products where such conduct is not in compliance with the requirements set out in Regulation (EU) 2017/852 of the European Parliament and of the Council (23) and causes or is likely to cause the death of, or serious injury to, any person, substantial damage to the quality of air, soil or water, or substantial damage to an ecosystem, animals or plants; (e) the execution of projects within the meaning of Article 1(2)(a), as referred to in Article 4(1) and (2), of Directive 2011/92/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council (24), where such conduct is carried out without a development consent and causes or is likely to cause substantial damage to the quality of air or soil, or the quality or status of water, or substantial damage to an ecosystem, animals or plants; (f) the collection, transport or treatment of waste, the supervision of such operations and the after-care of disposal sites, including action taken as a dealer or a broker, where such conduct: (i) concerns hazardous waste as defined in Article 3(2) of Directive 2008/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (25) and it concerns a non-negligible quantity of such waste; or (ii) concerns waste other than that referred to in point (i) and causes or is likely to cause the death of, or serious injury to, any person or substantial damage to the quality of air, soil or water, or substantial damage to an ecosystem, animals or plants; (g) the shipment of waste, within the meaning of Article 2, point (26), of Regulation (EU) 2024/1157 of the European Parliament and of the Council (26), where such conduct concerns a non-negligible quantity, whether executed in a single shipment or in several shipments which appear to be linked; (h) the recycling of ships falling within the scope of Regulation (EU) No 1257/2013, where such conduct is not in compliance with the requirements referred to in Article 6(2), point (a), of that Regulation; (i) the ship-source discharge of polluting substances falling within the scope of Article 3 of Directive 2005/35/EC into any area referred to in Article 3(1) of that Directive, except where such ship-source discharge satisfies the conditions for exceptions set out in Article 5 of that Directive, which causes or is likely to cause deterioration in the quality of water or damage to the marine environment; (j) the operation or closure of an installation in which a dangerous activity is carried out or in which dangerous substances or mixtures are stored or used, where such conduct and such dangerous activity, substance or mixture fall within the scope of Directive 2012/18/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council (27) or of Directive 2010/75/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council (28), and such conduct causes or is likely to cause the death of, or serious injury to, any person or substantial damage to the quality of air, soil or water, or substantial damage to an ecosystem, animals or plants; (k) the construction, operation and dismantling of an installation, where such conduct and such an installation fall within the scope of Directive 2013/30/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council (29), and such conduct causes or is likely to cause the death of, or serious injury to, any person or substantial damage to the quality of air, soil or water, or substantial damage to an ecosystem, animals or plants; (l) the manufacture, production, processing, handling, use, holding, storage, transport, import, export or disposal of radioactive material or radioactive substances, where such conduct and such a material or substances fall within the scope of Council Directives 2013/59/Euratom (30), 2014/87/Euratom (31) or 2013/51/Euratom (32), and such conduct causes or is likely to cause the death of, or serious injury, to any person or substantial damage to the quality of air, soil or water, or substantial damage to an ecosystem, animals or plants; (m) the abstraction of surface water or groundwater within the meaning of Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (33), where such conduct causes or is likely to cause substantial damage to the ecological status or ecological potential of surface water bodies or to the quantitative status of groundwater bodies; (n) the killing, destruction, taking of, possession, sale or offering for sale of a specimen or specimens of a species of wild fauna or flora listed in Annex IV, or in Annex V where species in that Annex are subject to the same measures as those adopted for species in Annex IV, to Council Directive 92/43/EEC (34) and of a specimen or specimens of the species referred to in Article 1 of Directive 2009/147/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (35), except where such conduct concerns a negligible quantity of such specimens; (o) the trade of a specimen or specimens, or parts or derivatives thereof, of a species of wild fauna or flora, listed in Annexes A and B to Council Regulation (EC) No 338/97 (36), and import of a specimen or specimens, or parts or derivatives thereof, of such species listed in Annex C to that Regulation, except where such conduct concerns a negligible quantity of such specimens; (p) the placing or making available on the Union market or the export from the Union market of relevant commodities or relevant products, in breach of the prohibition set out in Article 3 of Regulation (EU) 2023/1115, except where such conduct concerns a negligible quantity; (q) any conduct which causes the deterioration of a habitat within a protected site, or the disturbance of animal species listed in Annex II, point (a), to Directive 92/43/EEC within a protected site, within the meaning of Article 6(2) of that Directive, where such deterioration or disturbance is significant; (r) the bringing into the territory of the Union, placing on the market, keeping, breeding, transporting, using, exchanging, permitting to reproduce, growing or cultivating, releasing into the environment, or the spreading of invasive alien species of Union concern, where such conduct breaches: (i) restrictions set out in Article 7(1) of Regulation (EU) No 1143/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council (37) and causes or is likely to cause the death of, or serious injury to, any person or substantial damage to the quality of air, soil or water, or substantial damage to an ecosystem, animals or plants; or (ii) a condition of a permit issued under Article 8 of Regulation (EU) No 1143/2014 or of an authorisation granted under Article 9 of that Regulation and causes or is likely to cause the death of, or serious injury to, any person or substantial damage to the quality of air, soil or water, or substantial damage to an ecosystem, animals or plants; (s) the production, placing on the market, import, export, use, or release of ozone depleting substances, whether alone or as mixtures, as referred to in Article 2, point (a), of Regulation (EU) 2024/590 of the European Parliament and of the Council (38), or the production, placing on the market, import, export or use of products and equipment, and parts thereof, containing ozone-depleting substances or whose functioning relies upon those substances as referred to in Article 2(b) of that Regulation; (t) the production, placing on the market, import, export, use, or release of fluorinated greenhouse gases, whether alone or as mixtures, as referred to in Article 2, point (a), of Regulation (EU) 2024/573 of the European Parliament and of the Council (39) or the production, placing on the market, import, export or use of products and equipment, and parts thereof, containing fluorinated greenhouse gases or whose functioning relies upon those gases as referred to in Article 2, point (b), of that Regulation, or the putting into operation of such products and equipment.

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Source: EUR-Lex CELLAR · retrieved 2026-09-04