Nová legislativa EU v rámci boje s odlesňováním - část šestá: národní úprava

New EU legislation to combat deforestation - part six: national regulation

In the previous episode on measures and sanctions, we mentioned that national regulation will have a significant impact on their final form. Although the applicability of the EUDR will, barring turbulent changes, come in a couple months, the respective draft amendment to the law that would anchor the necessary details in national law is still "in its infancy".

As of the date of publication of this episode, the comments received on the bill submitted by the Ministry of Agriculture have been addressed; however, it has still not been included in the Government's agenda. It is therefore impossible to say when and in what form it will reach not only the Government, but especially the Chamber of Deputies, the Senate and the President - and when and in what form it will leave them. Nevertheless, let us at least have a look at the currently proposed situation, in terms of the relevant bodies and the sanctions envisaged.

A part of the bill widely criticised in the comment procedure is the establishment of a large number of competent authorities, which are also divided into several categories. The competent authorities would be 10 entities (including three different ministries and three inspectorates), not including the tasks entrusted to other authorities, such as customs. The main competent authority should be the National Forestry Institute, a newly established body which will build on the abolished Institute for Forest Management.

However, not every authority that should be entrusted with competence should also be empowered, for example, to carry out inspections - and not every authority that should be empowered to carry out inspections should also be empowered to impose measures or sanctions. This fragmentation of the authorities themselves, as well as differences in the scope of their powers, can lead to considerable inconsistency in their actions and difficult coordination not only with each other but also with the EU institutions.

However rich the proposal is in the regulation of the competent authorities, it is rather sparse in the regulation of sanctions. It provides for fines of up to five million Czech crowns for offences, but punishes some offences with fines of up to five hundred or even just fifty thousand crowns; in the case of repeated infringements, it doubles the thresholds. However, the requirement of the Regulation remains and legal persons could be fined up to 4% of their total annual turnover in the whole of the European Union for the previous financial year.

The proposal does not omit other types of sanctions from the range set out in the Regulation, which we informed you about in our fifth episode. As an innovation of its own, it introduces a warning for certain types of offences, which should be imposed on natural persons and micro and small enterprises.

Finally, let us mention an interesting point. The title of this part, which could read "for how much?", does not simply refer to the level of penalties envisaged by the draft national legislation. The EUDR also imposes costs on public administrations. The draft government resolution at the moment assumes that a total of CZK 130 000 000 per year should be made available from the state budget for the costs associated with the implementation of EUDR in the Czech Republic.

If you are interested in more detailed information, please contact the authors of the article or other members of the EY team with whom you work.

Authors:

Jan Turek

Veronika Juhasová