MEPs should not weaken air pollution protection

5.35.28pm UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 25th Sep 2006

London's Liberal Democrat Euro-MP Baroness Sarah Ludford is calling on fellow MEPs not to water down laws aimed at tackling air pollution across Europe when they vote tomorrow in Strasbourg. She says:

"Air pollution has a massive impact on both human health and the environment. Every year it causes the premature deaths of 360,000 Europeans and hundreds of billions of pounds of economic losses."

"The new proposals offer gains in simplifying existing legislation and making the results of monitoring more publicly accessible. I also strongly welcome controls being brought in for the first time on fine pollution particles which diesel-engined 'Chelsea tractors' spew out."

"But I am very concerned at the postponing of deadlines for governments to clean up pollution hotspots, even though they would have to produce an action plan to show how they will tackle them. Londoners enduring a choking atmosphere and rising asthma levels - or the government threat of a polluting Heathrow Third Runway - will not benefit from such postponement."

"The EU has a well earned reputation for championing environmental issues at home and abroad. It must now live up to this reputation and put citizens' health first."

Notes:

In September 2005, the European Commission proposed new streamlined legislation on air quality, replacing 5 Directives by one. While leaving unchanged annual limits on nitrogen dioxide and larger particulate matter (PM10), it introduced new limits on the smaller particulate matter which is most dangerous to human health and had not previously been regulated - PM2.5. The controversial aspect is the proposal for longer deadlines to meet pollution limits; the European Parliament is suggesting a 5 or even 10 years postponement, which goes even beyond what the European Commission and governments proposed.