The European Commission published on Thursday 17 December the roadmap for the revision of EU ambient air quality legislation to tighten up standards by aligning them more closely with the values recommended by the WHO (see EUROPE 12607/13).
Expected in the third quarter of 2022, this initiative of the European Green Deal will amend all the directives of the ‘Clean Air in Europe’ legislative package. The Commission will build on the lessons learned from the fitness check of the guidelines, which at the end of 2019 highlighted possible areas for improvement.
For certain pollutants covered by these directives, there is a growing body of scientific evidence pointing to serious adverse health effects at concentration levels below those set by EU air quality standards, in particular for fine particulate matter (PM2.5).
Beyond updating the standards, the revision will aim to: - improve the legislative framework, for example as regards penalties and information to the public; - help local authorities to clean up the air by strengthening air quality monitoring, modelling and plans. For example, monitoring criteria should be clarified and the comparability of air quality data should be improved.
The roadmap is open for comment until 14 January 2021. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)