Spain: control over Autonomous Communities’ emissions

Fundación Ecología y Desarrollo ? 19 January 2007 Spanish Autonomous Communities will have to provide the central Ministry of the Environment with comparable data on atmospheric pollution on a regular basis in order to jointly create a national system of information and vigilance of pollution. This is one of the measures included in the bill on Air Quality and Protection of the Atmosphere that is being discussed by the Spanish Council of Ministers. This law will also oblige the Autonomous Communities and big Local Administrations to consider pollution effects before approving new plans of urban development. In Spain, 12 million individuals live in areas with high rates of atmospheric pollution, which is responsible of around 16.000 premature deaths every year. All the Spanish Autonomous Communities and municipalities over 250.000 inhabitants will have to set up stations, networks and other systems to measure air quality. The existing measuring system is quite wide, but the problem is that many times the information reaching the Ministry of the Environment is quite uneven and not good enough for it to prepare the annual report that must be sent to the European Union. The central Spanish government will also have to transfer this information to the public opinion in general and to environmental-friendly organisations, trade unions, entrepreneurs, consumers, etc. The new law does not intend to change the level over which atmospheric pollution is considered harmful for health, because this level is established by the European Union, but to increase the control mechanisms. More information on: www.mma.es