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Abstract:
Since the transposition of the first Daughter Directive on air quality into Dutch national law, various plans for spatial developments in the Netherlands were rejected because of possible violation of air quality limit values. These plans were rejected by court after appeal by stakeholders. In this paper we investigate whether these issues also occur in other EU countries. We have found that only very few court cases of this type have occurred in other EU countries, because of differences in the implementation of the first Daughter Directive. One of the most striking differences is that in some countries (the Netherlands, Germany), limit values are understood as absolute limit values, whereas in other countries (Belgium, France, UK), the need to meet a limit value is weighted with other interests when deciding on granting permits. It is clear that, while most countries have exceedances of limit values, and all countries base their policy on the same EU air quality Directives, still large differences exist between Member States with respect to the role limit values play in granting permits for new spatial developments.
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