MEPs 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. Opening statements by Virginijus SINKEVIČIUS, European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries and by Javi LOPEZ (S&D, ES), Rapporteur. This transcription is a result of an automatic process. Please check against delivery.

statement

Strasbourg

debate

plenary session

air quality (T)

LÓPEZ, Javi (S&D, ES)

SINKEVIČIUS, Virginijus (LT, EC)

European Green Deal (T)

Ambient air quality and cleaner air for Europe: opening statements by Virginijus SINKEVIČIUS, European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries and by Javi López (S&D, ES), Rapporteur

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Javi L&Oacute;PEZ (S&amp;D, ES), Rapporteur, Thank you very much, President. Thank you, Commissioner. Today we are discussing the topic that we will vote on tomorrow, very important vote. It is the revision of ambient air quality to have cleaner air in Europe.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Javi LÓPEZ (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, Why is air quality an important discussion? The European Environment Agency states that it is one of the biggest environmental threats to human health. They state there are some 300,000 premature deaths per year, directly or indirectly, and there's a long list of illnesses and that are attributed to this asthma, cardiovascular disease, COPD, cancer.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Javi LÓPEZ (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, And we know that this is not just a debate on public health, this is also a debate on the least favoured. It doesn't impact all in the same way specifically impacts the most vulnerable, pregnant women, children, those who are socio-economically disadvantaged. The most vulnerable are always the most exposed to pollutants.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Javi LÓPEZ (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, But, also this has a huge cost when it comes to health care provision. Over the course of the last decade, the European Union has attempted to improve its air quality and it's been doing this for decades now. Indeed, we have been able to improve our air quality. But it continues to be a big problem. Some 48% of citizens are exposed to air pollution, according to the W.H.O.. This is extremely nefarious for our health.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Javi LÓPEZ (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, So, 15 to 20 years, the Commission came up with a proposal, an excellent proposal on the table as a package of the European Green Deal and a it's a action net-pollutant plan. There are some positive aspects that I'd like to underscore specifically two: the periodical revision. Every year we have better scientific data and better knowledge. That means that we can be more demanding in terms of what our standards are, and access to justice and compensation to empower citizens.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Javi LÓPEZ (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, The ENVI Committee of the European Parliament adopted an initial proposal goes along the lines of what was put forth by the European Commission. It does add a few elements. The first to line up our air quality standards to the W.H.O. standards. We could discuss when this should take place, but our objective would be to make sure that we protect our citizens from anything that has a harmful impact. That seems obvious.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Javi LÓPEZ (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, Now, monitoring. This is a key aspect, of course. We need to be able to have good representative monitoring of what is happening everywhere because not everyone is breathing the same air and that seems intuitive to me. Then air quality plans. This is extremely because it's exactly what the local authorities and the regional authorities will be using to be able to support their roadmaps for achieving air quality and public information.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Javi LÓPEZ (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, Also, it means that people are aware of what is happening and it also means that they can request more from their authorities. So, we are at a crucial point. It is a unique opportunity. We had the most important health crises in the history of Europe in a century time. And today we are debating a fundamental tool to protect European health of our citizens.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Javi LÓPEZ (S&D, ES), Rapporteur, Let us not waste this opportunity to protect our citizens. It is our responsibility, not just with the environment, but with citizens and with the public accountability of all of our administrations here in Europe. Thank you very much.

SOUNDBITE (English), Virginijus SINKEVIČIUS, European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, Thank you, President. Honourable Members. First of all, let me start by thanking the Rapporteur, Javi López, for the excellent work done to advance this file. Clean air is essential for all of us our health, our environment and our whole economy. That depends on it. So, we must tackle this problem with ambition and a sense of urgency and with the clear objective of achieving better air quality by 2030 and zero pollution by 2050.

SOUNDBITE (English), Virginijus SINKEVIČIUS, European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, With the European Green Deal and the Zero Pollution Action Plan, we are strongly committed to these objectives and in line with the expectations of EU citizens. It's for all of us to deliver on those commitments. Nearly 300,000 Europeans die prematurely each year as a result of air pollution. This is a huge number of lives. We cannot afford to lose.

SOUNDBITE (English), Virginijus SINKEVIČIUS, European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, Scientists, citizens, as well as this House, have called for urgent and action to drastically reduce this figure and align to what are the science recommendations. In the Green Deal, we made a commitment to revise air quality standards and to apply them more closely with the recommendations of the W.H.O..

SOUNDBITE (English), Virginijus SINKEVIČIUS, European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, We also committed to strengthening provisions on monitoring, modelling and air quality plans to help local authorities achieve cleaner air. And this is exactly what we have done. Our proposal sets out four essential elements to substantially improve EU air quality. The first one is ambitious, yet achievable air quality standards. Our throughout the impact assessment confirms that this is entirely feasible from both, the technical and the socio-economic point of view.

SOUNDBITE (English), Virginijus SINKEVIČIUS, European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, The second is preserving and enhancing the real, very real ability and robustness of the monitoring network with increased use of cost effective methods like modelling. The third is better and more harmonised informations for citizens, including on health effects of air pollution.

SOUNDBITE (English), Virginijus SINKEVIČIUS, European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, And lastly, we strengthen the provisions for governance and enforcement, and this includes establish a new right for citizens to seek compensation for damage health. Also through collective action building on well-established procedural guarantees which makes collective redress action in the EU very different from other leading international jurisdictions.

SOUNDBITE (English), Virginijus SINKEVIČIUS, European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, Honourable Members, let me conclude on the most critical issues. The new standards we propose are stricter, but also implementable. Our robust impact assessment confirms that they can be achieved by 2030 at up to 94% of EU monitoring stations, with benefits that are at least seven times greater than the costs. It also shows that neither lowering nor delaying those standards are an option, as those changes would be unacceptable.

SOUNDBITE (English), Virginijus SINKEVIČIUS, European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, Costs in terms of human lives. And not only. As I said, any year we are losing the lives of 300,000 citizens. Our proposed standards would allow to decrease the premature deaths from air pollution by at least 70% in the next ten years.

SOUNDBITE (English), Virginijus SINKEVIČIUS, European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, Thanks also to the synergies we can build with ambitious measures already adopted on transport energy. The proposal would also lead to gross annual benefits, estimated at between €42 billion and 121 billion in 2034, less than a 6 billion costs.

SOUNDBITE (English), Virginijus SINKEVIČIUS, European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, Dear colleagues. I look forward to hearing your views and this is a very crucial and important topic, which I am sure is dear to European hearts, too. Thank you.

SOUNDBITE (Dutch), Vera TAX (S&D, NL), Committee on Transport and Tourism, In my country, in the Netherlands many people lose their lives due to poor air quality. Right across Europe we see large numbers of people dying prematurely and  it's linked to factories polluting the air, but it affects children many people are affected by it. Elderly people, too, are affected by air pollution.

SOUNDBITE (Dutch), Vera TAX (S&D, NL), Committee on Transport and Tourism, We have countless problems linked to this and there's a huge detrimental effect on people suffering due to air pollution. Everyone has the right to breathe clean air. We need a European approach to try and tackle the situation and tackle the problem polluting company.