HARMONIZATION OF EC AIR-QUALITY DIRECTIVES

The Environment Institute of the Joint Research Centre in Ispra devotes an important part of its activities to support the Commission of the European Communities in scientific and technical matters. As an example of these activities, a general overview is given of the harmonisation work lead by its Central Laboratory of Air Pollution for the implementation of EC air quality directives in the European Member States. The different stages of a directive's development are reviewed and illustrated with typical examples of harmonisation work recently undertaken. Preparatory actions for future regulations are illustrated by the recent intercomparison exercise for VOC measurements, realized in view of the coming directive on photo-oxidants. Quality assurance programmes are developed that are mainly focused on the evaluation of sampling, calibration and measurement techniques in the Member States. Special attention is also paid to the harmonisation of network design. The results of a recent network design campaign realised in Madrid, using passive sampling techniques in combination with mobile measurements, are presented. An example of the development of scientific and technical progress is given by the intercomparison of primary NO2 calibration standards, where the reference method of the directive was checked and compared to new standard methods.