Air pollution: Parliament to adopt its position on improving EU air quality
MEPs will debate on Tuesday and vote on Wednesday on new rules to improve EU air quality for a cleaner and healthier environment.
In October 2022, the Commission proposed a revision of the EU air quality rules with more ambitious targets for 2030 to achieve the zero pollution objective by 2050 in line with the EU’s Zero Pollution Action Plan.
The draft text, adopted by the Environment Committee in June 2023, sets stricter 2030 limits and target values for several pollutants relative to the original Commission proposal to ensure that air quality in the EU is not harmful to human health, natural ecosystems and biodiversity. MEPs also want to increase the number of air quality sampling points and harmonise currently-fragmented and unintuitive air quality indices to provide better information to citizens about local air pollution.
Background
Air pollution continues to be the number one environmental cause of early death in the EU with around 300 000 premature deaths per year (check here to see how clean the air is in your city) with the most harmful being particulate matter (PM2.5, PM10), NO2 (nitrogen dioxide), SO2 (sulphur dioxide) and O3 (ozone), according to the EEA.
Procedure code: 2022/0347(COD)
Procedure: Ordinary legislative procedure, first reading
Debate: Tuesday 12 September 2023
Vote: Wednesday 13 September 2023