Fitness Check of the Ambient Air Quality Directives concludes that they have been partially effective in improving air quality and achieving air quality standards

Clean air is essential to human health. It is also essential to sustaining the environment, and provides multiple economic and social benefits. The scientific evidence of harmful effects of air pollution is well-established, robust and points to a clear need for action. With the two Ambient Air Quality Directives (Directives 2008/50 and 2004/107), in combination with the wider EU Clean Air Policy Framework, the European Union has the policy tools at hand to address this challenge.

The Ambient Air Quality Directives have guided the establishment of a representative high-quality monitoring of air quality, set clear air quality standards, and facilitated the exchange of reliable, objective, comparable information on air quality, including to a wider public. They have been less successful in ensuring that sufficient action is taken by Member States to meet air quality standards and keep exceedances as short as possible. 

Nevertheless, the available evidence indicates the Ambient Air Quality Directives have contributed to a downward trend in air pollution and reduced the number and magnitude of exceedances. This partial delivery allows to conclude that the Ambient Air Quality Directives have been broadly fit for purpose – while at the same time pointing to scope for improvements to the existing framework such that good air quality be achieved across the EU.

Karmenu Vella: “This fitness check shows that air quality policy works: if and when it is implemented properly. If we want clean air – and I think we all do – then we need a collective approach, with contributions from all sectors, from transport to energy, from industry to agriculture with a concern for the environment factored in as early as possible. We won't solve air pollution by dealing with its consequences. We'll solve it by stopping it happening in the first place.”

Looking ahead, the fitness check offers seven lessons learned:

• Air pollution continues to be a major health and environmental concern to the citizens of the EU which underlines the relevance of the Ambient Air Quality Directives;
• the EU air quality standards have been instrumental in driving a downward trend in exceedances and exposure of population to exceedances;
• the current air quality standards are not as ambitious as established scientific advice suggests for several pollutants, especially fine particulate matter (PM2.5);
• trends in exceedance levels indicate that limit values have been more effective in facilitating downward trends than other types of air quality standards;
• enforcement action by the European Commission and by civil society actors in front of national courts has resulted in actionable rulings, and the legislation is enforceable;
• additional guidance or implementing acts could help to further harmonise approaches applied to monitoring, information provisions, and air quality plans and measures;
• the successful establishment of an EU-wide e-reporting based on machine-readable formats now allows for further efficiency gains.