Air quality: three member states granted additional time for compliance
Publication date: 03 July 2009
Three member states granted additional time for compliance
The European Commission decided, on 2 July, to grant three member states (Germany, Austria and Hungary) additional
time to comply, in certain zones, with limit values for particulate matter (PM10) emissions as specified in the air quality directive. Six other countries – Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Spain, France and Slovakia – however, had their requests rejected.
The nine countries that are the subject of the decisions notified exemption requests covering 94 zones or agglomerations. The countries whose demands were rejected can appeal the decision and file a new notification which, in order to be valid, must include complementary information complying with the directive requirements and proof that the requisite conditions have been met. The Commission has nine months to take a decision.
If they do not file a new request, which would take precedence over any other measure, the six member states should be served in the coming weeks with infringement proceedings. Such proceedings were already started, in January 2009, against ten member states (Estonia, Slovenia, Sweden, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Cyprus, Portugal and Poland). Eighteen member states filed requests for additional time, for a total of 307 zones. Twenty decisions should be taken in 2009: the first was on 7 April, in favour of the Netherlands; nine happened on 2 July; the remainder are expected at a pace of two to three a month between September and December. Two member states said they had no problem: Ireland and Luxembourg.
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Background
Directive 2008/50/EC on air quality sets binding limit values and/or indicative target values for the concentrations of certain pollutants in the atmosphere. There are two binding limit values for PM10 particles (particles whose diameter
is between 2.5 and ten microns), based on average daily and annual concentrations. The values, set by Directive 96/62/EC, remained unchanged when the text was revised in 2008, the date of entry into force having been put back
until 1 January 2005. The deadlines for complying with the PM10 standards can be delayed by three years as of the entry into force of the directive (ie mid-2011), or by five years for nitrogen dioxide and benzene (2010-2015), provided that the applicable Community legislation, for example on Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC), has been fully implemented. The directive also requires member states to reduce, by 2020, exposure to very fine particles (PM2.5)
in urban zones by 20% on average, compared with 2010, and to lower exposure levels below 20 microgrammes/m3 by
2015 in these zones. The lists of zones exceeding the limits, by member state, are available at:ec.europa.eu/environment/air/quality/legislation/exceedances.htm
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While the former case makes sense, it is harder to understand the lack of any problem on the issue in the case of Luxembourg, a small, enclosed land used as a transit route and near large industrial centres. The Commission’s services
therefore plan to study in more detail the information provided by the country. For 19 air quality zones in Austria, Germany and Hungary, the Commission decided that the notified exemptions met the conditions spelled out in the directive. For the other zones, the Commission considered that the conditions were not met, often because of insufficient
data supplied or because the measure put forward in the air quality plans submitted to the Commission did not show that the standards would be respected by the time the exemption period had expired. The Commission’s assessment also showed that, in some cases, exemptions are not necessary, given that the limit values have already been complied with.
Read the full European Commission's Press Release:  2009-03-07-PressRelease-AirQuality.pdf (23.2 KB)
Source: Europolitics
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