(15 February 2017) – The European Commission sends final warnings to Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom for failing to address repeated breaches of air pollution limits for nitrogen dioxide (NO2).
NO2 pollution is a serious health risk. Persistently high levels of NO2 caused almost 70 000 premature deaths in Europe in 2013, which was almost three times the number of deaths by road traffic accidents in the same year.
Today’s reasoned opinion concerns persistent breaches of NO2 limit values in:
– Germany (28 air quality zones, including Berlin, Munich, Hamburg and Köln);
– France (19 air quality zones, among them Paris, Marseille and Lyon);
– The United Kingdom (16 air quality zones, among them London, Birmingham, Leeds, and Glasgow);
– Italy (12 air quality zones, including Rome, Milan and Turin);
– Spain (3 air quality zones, one being Madrid and two covering Barcelona).