While doubts have already been expressed about the promise of a “Green Brexit”, little is known about how the EU and the UK will now cooperate to tackle environmental crime. This chapter will demonstrate that, although Part 3 of the TCA has reduced UK’s engagement in EU’s Justice and Home Affairs, the transnational nature of environmental crime and its high level of priority could lead to a strong level of EU-UK operational cooperation in the post-Brexit era.

En s’appuyant sur le concept de réputation et en invitant à saisir le renforcement de l’UE au-delà des potentielles modifications de sa seule base légale, ce chapitre démontre que les « crises », matérialisées par des attaques terroristes, ont eu des effets variables dans l'action publique en matière d'anti- terrorisme. À partir d’entretiens et de l’étude de la littérature grise, ce chapitre démontre au travers du cas d'Europol que, en dépit du volontarisme politique, les potentielles conjonctures critiques n’ont pas nécessairement mené à une consolidation tangible des capacités d’action européennes, y compris d'Europol, dans la lutte contre le terrorisme en raison du manque d’européanisation des policiers nationaux. Les attentats ont uniquement constitué des temporalités favorables pour la consolidation du niveau européen lorsque les stratégies déployées par le personnel de l’agence pour répondre très rapidement à ces événements ont favorisé les ajustements domestiques à l’échelon européen dans un temps très réduit grâce à des développements de plus long terme.

Since the 2015 refugee crisis EU agencies have been at the center stage of EU’s migration and external border control policies and have witnessed a reinforcement of their capabilities. While agencification, as the creation and empowerment of agencies, is not new at EU level, especially in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ), the importance of the post-2015 dynamics has been underestimated by some scholars. Part of the explanation of these diverging views is that agencification in reaction to the 2015 events happened both de jure and de facto. This is especially the case in the hotspots, brought to life by the European Commission through non-legislative texts, that have led to an unprecedented deployment on the ground of the staff from EU agencies to help national authorities screen, identify and register migrants. This deployment is new in terms of its duration, of inter-agency cooperation and of the activities EU agencies have been in charge of, exceeding their legal provisions in some cases. This communication argues that an additional explanatory variable of this different understanding of the post-2015 events lies in the depoliticisation strategies used by the European Commission to push for a quiet agencification and limit the political debates. This paper demonstrates that, against a backdrop of intense politicisation of the refugee crisis at domestic level, the European Commission has attempted, through the hotspot approach, to depoliticise European policies in this area by expanding the capacity for action of EU agencies, both de jure and de facto. However, these critical transformations in the role of agencies have led to a form of “politicization backlash” (Schmeer, 2023, 210), particularly around the issue of fundamental rights violations resulting from agencification. However, the Commission's failure was only partial, and did not really call into question the dynamics at work that persisted during the NPMA negotiations. Indeed, the very intense politicisation of other aspects of EU migration and asylum policies has benefited the agencification pushed quietly by the Commission, both in European law and in practice, with remaining concerns regarding the fundamental rights of migrants.

Part of a panel on the EU and its un-muting power, this communication traces back the legislative journey of the Environmental Crime Directive, from its first version adopted in 2008 to the latest European Commission's proposal in 2021. It reveals the role of the EC as a supranational policy entrepreneur in the field of environmental criminal law and studies how the EC has succeeded in supranationalising the fight against serious damages to the environment since the 2000s, even though this domain was excluded from its prerogatives. This communication then questions what that supranational move has meant for the victims of environmental crime and whether the EU has effectively ‘un-muted’ them by paying attention to the EU environmental crime toolbox and the extent to which it: 1. Complements and alleviates the existing national regulations and instruments to protect the ‘voiceless’ victims of green crime; and 2. Gives voice to those impacted by environmental crime, whether during investigations or criminal proceedings.

Organisé pour le Centre d’Etude et de Recherche en Science Administrative (CERSA – CNRS) - Paris II Panthéon-Assas par Anne-Laure Riotte et Kim-Khanh Pham

Colloque annuel de la CEDECE

Colloque organisé par le CESICE