In April 2023, the European Environment Agency published its latest report on Europe’s air quality. The report assesses levels of air pollutants in ambient air across Europe and compares them against both EU standards as set out in the ambient air quality directives and the 2021 World Health Organization (WHO) global air quality guidelines. The EU air quality standards are less strict for all pollutants than the WHO air quality guideline levels.

Under the European Green Deal’s Zero Pollution Action Plan, the European Commission set the 2030 goal of reducing the number of premature deaths caused by fine particulate matter (PM2.5, a key air pollutant), by at least 55% compared with 2005 levels. To this end, the European Commission published in 2022 a proposal to review the ambient air quality directives, aiming, among other things, to align the air quality standards more closely with WHO recommendations.

Despite reductions in emissions, in 2021 most of the EU’s urban population was exposed to levels of key air pollutants that are damaging to health (see Figure 1). In particular, 97% of the urban population was exposed to concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) above the 2021 WHO annual guideline of 5 µg/m3.

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