Luxembourg, 10/10/2000 (Agence Europe) - The Environment Council on Tuesday reached a political agreement with a view to a "common position" on the draft directive aimed at establishing target values for tropospheric ozone concentration in the ambient air by the year 2010 or at longer term, in the interest of human health and the environment. Dominique Voynet, French Environment Minister and Chair of the session, welcomed this move forward on a text that will complete the Community's legislative arsenal on air quality. "This third directive for application of the 1996 framework directive establishes long term objectives, target values to be met, the duty to keep the public informed and a threshold for warning populations in the event of excessive levels, in order to reduce the harmful effects of a substance that is dangerous for human health and the environment", recalled Ms Voynet, stressing the advantages of common surveillance criteria and methods, as well as increased cooperation between member States to promote the prevention of such dangers through good citizen information.
Speaking on behalf of the European Commission, Margot Wallström added: "We should have liked more stringent values, but I believe the compromise is good". In facts, the ministers did not change the figures initially proposed by the Commission. The only substantial change concerns the number of days during which annual surpluses over and above the target value will be authorised, that is 25 days instead of 20.
Ms Voynet explained that, regarding the fight against ozone - a complex phenomenon given the role played by the "ozone precursors" in its formation -, "the difficulty is not to fix a threshold but to establish at the same time a duration beyond which public information strategies and the reduction of pollution are necessary" - a difficulty that the ministers, she says, have overcome by agreeing to the following compromise:
No change was brought to the nature of minimum information that the Member States will be compelled to give the public if the information or alarm threshold is surpassed: place or region concerned, date and time of excess, forecast for the afternoon or the following day, information on the high risk population groups, possible impact on health, behaviour recommended, etc.
The Council compromise will be forwarded to the European Parliament for second reading.
EUROPE recalls that this directive is part of a "legislative package" of which the first two elements, concerning the large combustion plants and the "national emission ceilings", have already been the subject of a Council common position. Once in force, these three texts should, by 2010, allow reductions of: a) 33% (compared to 1990) in the percentage of Union areas still affected by acidification; b) 35% the number of persons exposed to concentrations of ozone above tolerable limits; c) 20% of the vegetation exposed to ozone and d) 14% the number of ecosystems still not protected against eutrophication.