Comisión de Medio Ambiente, Cambio Climático y Energía

Plan de Acción de la UE: Contaminación cero para el aire, el agua y el suelo

Opinion factsheet

En esta página

  • Medio ambiente
  • Calidad del aire
  • Política medioambiental
  • Control de la contaminación
  • Cambio Climático y Energía
  • Pacto Verde Europeo
Opinion number:
CDR-3178-2021
Status:
Aprobados
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Objective

Opinion on the Communication "Pathway to a Healthy Planet for All - EU Action Plan: Towards Zero Pollution for Air, Water and Soil" or "Zero Pollution Action Plan".

A general opinion on the Action Plan could potentially:
Address specific files or actions included in the Action Plan.
Contribute to assessments included in the Plan on the need of future actions.
Provide inputs to mainstream cross-cutting zero pollution proposals in other policy areas.
Address direct involvement of CoR in actions, especially the Zero Pollution Stakeholder Platform.

Impact

As a follow-up of the opinion, the CoR role in the implementation of the Zero Pollution Action Plan has continued in the new Zero Pollution Stakeholder Platform an initiative co-organized by the CoR and by the European Commission.
The Opinion highlighted the importance of local and regional authorities in this policy area.
As a follow-up, it was established that the CoR and the European Commission would co-chair the Zero Pollution Stakeholder Platform. The CoR Rapporteur was appointed as Co-chair. This was a major recognition of the role of local and regional authorities, and specifically of the CoR, in fighting pollution.
The CoR also ensured that the members of the Platform included a significant number of stakeholders representing local and regional authorities.
The Platform has organized several activities with participation of CoR members, on different aspects of Zero Pollution policies.
Website of the Platform: https://environment.ec.europa.eu/zero-pollution-stakeholder-platform_en
Webpage Zero Pollution Going Local of the CoR: https://cor.europa.eu/en/engage/Pages/zero-pollution-going-local.aspx
The Opinion supported the launch of the Zero Pollution Dashboard for Regions and Cities that was launched in 2025 and includes references to the CoR catalogue of Best Practices.
https://environment.ec.europa.eu/strategy/zero-pollution-action-plan/towards-zero-pollution-regions_en
The opinion provided inputs for subsequent actions foreseen by the Action Plan, including supporting legislative proposals subsequently proposed by the European Commission.
The European Commission proposed legislative initiatives on specific Zero Pollution policies (mainly on air, water, soil, industrial emissions). See specific CoR opinions on these initiatives for more details. Further initiatives on chemicals are expected in 2025.
Reply of the European Commission: https://cor.europa.eu/en/our-work/Documents/Opinions/follow-up-report-CoR-january-2022.pdf

Essential points

THE EUROPEAN COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS

 welcomes the European Commission's Communication on the EU Action Plan: 'Towards Zero Pollution for Air, Water and Soil', its focus on health and its cross-cutting approach. The CoR looks forward to the announced actions and proposals and calls for them to be coherent and consistent with each other and other Green Deal initiatives;

 emphasises that pollution is a major problem that needs to be tackled through effective multilevel governance and a cross-border approach: each stakeholder has its role, and action at all levels is necessary to prevent local and regional authorities (LRAs) from being confronted with negative effects at the end of the chain;

 welcomes the six main 2030 targets as a start but regrets that most of the targets are not new. The CoR feels that more ambition and additional action is needed and encourages the Commission to start a continuous process of reviewing and adjusting targets towards the 2050 vision and to include the CoR in this process;

 points out that the post-pandemic recovery should focus on "One Health", acknowledging the interconnectedness between human, environmental and animal health;

 welcomes the new zero pollution hierarchy based on a "reverse pyramid" but regrets that "remedying and offsetting pollution-related damage" is given minimal consideration;

 calls for the polluter pays principle (PPP) to be better integrated into environmental legislation, in particular by lowering emissions limits to further reduce residual pollution and dealing with diffuse pollution from all sources, including agriculture;

 draws attention to the European Environment Agency (EEA) analysis , which shows that sub-optimal implementation of environmental legislation is most often the result of ineffective coordination between authorities, a lack of administrative capacity, insufficient funding, a lack of knowledge and data, insufficient compliance mechanisms and a lack of policy integration. The Zero Pollution Stakeholder Platform should foster better coordination among all levels of government and across policy areas. The CoR strongly supports the new platform and welcomes its own role in it as a recognition of the great importance of LRAs for the zero pollution ambition.

Timeline