12
Sep
2023
Watch
Ambient air quality and cleaner air for Europe (debate)
Madam President, Commissioner, it is good that you are here today, ladies and gentlemen. In the European Union, we can rightly be proud that air quality in the European Union has improved in recent years because, as Europeans, we have jointly enacted laws that have ensured that people in the European Union can live healthier lives. And yet: More than 300,000 people die each year as a result of poor air quality. This is a circumstance that we cannot simply accept and that we actually have to address. That is why we need legislation that, on the one hand, ensures that air quality increases even further. And just because it's okay now doesn't mean you can put your hands in your lap. I invite you to go to cities where traffic thunders past residential buildings, where people have to live in areas where the air is bad and cannot afford the house where the quality of living is good, or buy new air filters. Therefore, the question of clean air is an essential one and, above all, it is a political one. It's something easy to say: Well, we don't want to set limits that cause driving bans, and then at the same time don't care that internal combustion engines are cleaner. So you can always put your hands in the lap. But honestly, this is not the way we want to do politics, but we want limit values that we can achieve and actually set the political framework for this, so that fewer people die in the European Union and we all have good air. We can work on that together tomorrow. I hope that tomorrow, in the vote, reason will prevail.