Health groups across Europe call for the European Parliament and member states to swiftly adopt the agreement reached in trilogue on updating EU’s clean air standards (revised Ambient Air Quality Directive).
The deal agreed recently includes updates on maximum levels for the major air pollutants, strengthened monitoring requirements, better information to people including vulnerable groups. The draft law also introduces new access to justice and compensation rules.
The provisional agreement now must be adopted by the European Parliament and Council, before entering into force (with a two-year transposition timeline).
Air pollution weights heavy on the health of people in the EU and the economy; 97% of the urban population breathes air that is considered unhealthy, resulting in hundreds of thousands of premature deaths and hundreds of billions of euros in health costs each year. Air pollution affects everyone and those most vulnerable disproportionally, such as those already ill, children, elderly, pregnant women, and those facing health inequalities.
European health groups have been united in their call to member states to help ensure the unacceptable suffering from air pollution can be put to an end with science and health-based legally binding limit values.
