Brussels, 1 December 2005 - In today’s letter to European Ministers, the European Public Health Alliance Environment Network (EEN) has expressed its serious concern about the "severe lack of ambition" of the Thematic Strategy on Air Pollution.

The Ministers will be attending the Environment Council on Wednesday where they will discuss the proposals. EEN and the other co-signatories of the letter hope for some strong reactions against its lamentable content. "If changes are not demanded, we predict there will be very little benefit to either health or air quality for European citizens," says Genon Jensen, EEN Director.

The letter, which is signed by four major European health networks, describes how European legislation associated with the 6th Enivironmental Action Programme required the Commission to produce a strategy "that considers strict air quality standards to reduce the health burden". European environment and health ministers themselves made their own commitments to reducing air pollution at a World Health Organisation meeting on Children’s Environment and Health in Hungary in May 2004.

However, the current proposal is likely to result in more lax limits than exist currently - and therefore do nothing to improve air quality in Europe. "It attempts to reduce existing limit values, ignores recommended standards based on European-funded research on the health effects, and offers no effective and legally-binding mechanism to ensure reduced exposure," according to Ms Jensen.

Most of the health problems associated with outdoor air pollution, such as lower respiratory diseases and asthma, are due to "particulate matter", especially PM2.5 and PM10. "Thirty leading European scientists involved in this field say levels set in the current proposal for PM2.5 are "unprotective" to health and that complicated compliance considerations on PM10 will end up allowing more adverse effects to occur rather than less." (See attachment: Letter from Professor Bert Brunekreef, Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht to Mr. Florenz, Member of the European Parliament, Chair of the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee)

According to the European Federation of Allergy and Airway Diseases Patients’ Association, a co-signatory of the letter, the next 20 years could see the number of asthma sufferers increasing by 50% to 450 million people. "Around 1.5 million people in Europe live in fear of dying from an attack," according to Ms Susanna Palkonen, EFA Executive Officer.