EU takes steps to strengthen air quality standards

The European Council presidency and European Parliament’s representatives have reached a provisional political agreement on a proposal to strengthen EU air quality standards.

The objective is to realise a zero-pollution ambition, contributing to a toxic-free environment in the EU by 2050. It also seeks to bring EU air quality standards in line with the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendations.

Enhanced EU air quality standards

The agreement still needs to be confirmed by both institutions before going through the formal adoption procedure. With the new rules, the co-legislators agreed to set out enhanced EU air quality standards for 2030 in the form of limit and target values that are closer to the WHO guidelines and that will be regularly reviewed.

The revised directive covers a host of air-polluting substances, including fine particles and particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulphur dioxide (SO2), benzo(a)pyrene, arsenic, lead and nickel, among others, and establishes specific standards for each one of them. For instance, the annual limit values for the pollutants with the highest documented impact on human health, PM2.5 and NO2, would be reduced from 25 µg/m³ to 10 µg/m³ and from 40 µg/m³ to 20 µg/m³ respectively.

In cases where there is no significant potential to reduce ozone concentrations at local or regional level, the co-legislators agreed to exempt member states from establishing air quality plans

The provisional agreement provides member states with the possibility to request, by 31 January 2029 and for specific reasons and under strict conditions, a postponement of the deadline for attaining the air quality limit values:

• until no later than 1 January 2040 for areas where compliance with the directive by the deadline would prove unachievable due to specific climatic and orographic conditions or where the necessary reductions can only be achieved with significant impact on existing domestic heating systems
• until no later than 1 January 2035 (with possibility to extend it by two more years) if projections show that the limit values cannot be achieved by the attainment deadline.