EUROSAI WGEA COOPERATIVE AUDIT ON AIR QUALITY

Report ID: 251

With the aim to assess whether the governments of 16 european countries were taking proper action on air quality, the SAIs of the European Court of Auditors, Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Israel, Kosovo, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and the Netherlands conducted a cooperative audit.

In order to collect and assess comparable information on national government actions, the 15 SAIs
prepared a common audit framework containing the main audit question, the audit topics and the corresponding secondary questions to be addressed by the national audits. The main audit question was: “What is known about the effectiveness and efficiency of measures taken by national and local governments to improve air quality, and are these measures compliant with international and national legislation?”

Two of the main audit findings were that many European countries are failing to comply with international and European standards on air quality. Moreover, many governments have failed to take effective  action to improve air quality and hence to protect their citizens’ health.