LUXEMBOURG (CN) — European Union citizens can sue their governments for failing to meet air pollution standards if their health has suffered as a result, an adviser to the EU’s high court said Thursday.
Advocate General Juliane Kokott noted in her nonbinding opinion for the European Court of Justice that the burden of air pollution falls disproportionally on the poor, who are forced to live and work in the most contaminated places.
The case was referred to the top EU court by the Administrative Court of Appeal of Versailles after a Parisian man sued the French state for 21 million euros ($22 million) in damages. JP, as the man is identified in court documents, wants the French government to pay up because it has repeatedly failed to meet air pollution limits set by the EU.
Kokott wrote that France’s failure to adhere to environmental regulations has been “systematic and persistent” and that citizens are entitled to compensation from governments that break the rules.
“An exceedance of the limit values for ambient air quality without a corresponding plan to remedy the exceedance constitutes a serious infringement of EU law,” the German judge wrote.
The Luxembourg-based court castigated France in 2019 for repeatedly failing to curb pollution levels. Before that, Brussels launched a complaint against France in 2010 for not doing enough to stop mounting nitrogen dioxide levels, a toxic gas mostly emitted from diesel engines.
According to JP, the deterioration of the air quality in his Paris neighborhood has been increasingly detrimental to his health. Smog has long been a persistent complaint in many European cities, and air pollution is considered Europe’s top environmental health risk, with 379,000 premature deaths in the EU attributed to fine particulate matter pollution in 2018.
However, Kokott noted that establishing a causal link between pollution and health damage could prove to be challenging for victims.
“The injured party must first prove that he or she has stayed, for a sufficiently long period of time, in an environment in which limit values for ambient air quality under EU law have been seriously infringed,” she wrote.
France is not the only EU country to face penalties for failing to meet pollution standards. Last year, the court found that Hungary had not done enough to reduce air pollution in Budapest. In 2020, Italy was cited for allowing too much particulate matter in the air of several of its biggest cities. Brussels has also gone after Spain, Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania for violating EU environmental regulations.
Opinions from advocates general are not binding on the court, but final rulings typically follow their legal reasoning in about 80% of cases. A final decision in this case is expected later this year.
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