European air pollution is a well-established
environment policy area; applied over decades, it
has resulted in decreased emissions of air pollutants
and has led to noticeable improvements in air
quality.
Current EU air pollution policy is underpinned
by the 2005 Thematic Strategy on Air Pollution
(TSAP) (EC, 2005) for achieving improvements in
2020 relative to the situation in 2000, with concrete
objectives concerning impacts on human health and
the environment. The TSAP also established which
European legislation and measures are needed to
ensure progress towards the long-term goal of the
Sixth Environment Action Programme (6EAP),
(i.e. the previous EAP which ran from 2002 to 2012),
to attain 'levels of air quality that do not give rise to
significant negative impacts on, and risks to human
health and the environment'. This goal has recently
been reinforced in the Seventh EAP (which will run
until 2020). To move towards achieving the TSAP
objectives, EU air pollution legislation has followed a
twin-track approach of implementing both air‑quality
standards and emission mitigation controls.