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While Scandinavia is unsurprisingly the European region where it is good to get a breath of fresh air, the south of Portugal is also a good idea to escape pollution, according to the latest report from the European Environment Agency.
This is the bad news of this report of the European Environment Agency (EEA) dedicated to air quality in the Union: almost all of its citizens who live in urban areas are exposed to concentrations of fine particles higher than the threshold recommended by the World Health Organization. The annual average concentration must not exceed the maximum safety level of 5 micrograms of fine particles per cubic meter.
But there is some good news. Air quality in Europe has improved, when we take into account data from 2022 and 2023. And only 1% of European monitoring stations recorded concentrations of fine particles higher than the EU’s annual limit value. Unfortunately, not all of Europe is in the same boat on this point. There are real disparities between regions. In Italy, Poland and Croatia, the readings indicate concentrations higher than what is allowed by the EU. Conversely, only in Iceland was the air truly breathable, if we only take into account the threshold recommended by the WHO. The land of fire and ice was in fact the only country to present data in 2022 below.
At the municipal level, the air is purest when you live in Scandinavia, and especially in Sweden. Uppsala and Umeå are respectively in first and second place among European cities with the most breathable air, according to the EEA. The bronze medal goes to Faro, in southern Portugal, contradicting the Scandinavian hegemony in terms of healthy environment. Specifically, we are talking about 3.5 micrograms of fine particles per cubic meter.
In total, thirteen European cities have concentrations of fine particles below the threshold indicated by the WHO, four of which are capitals, namely Reykjavik, Tallinn, Stockholm and Helsinki.
On the French side, Saint-Denis de la Réunion is the least polluted city, successively ahead of Bayonne and Saint-Brieuc. Conversely, Dunkirk and Grenoble are the least breathable (11 micrograms of fine particles per cubic meter), ahead of Marseille (10.8) tied with Annecy, more polluted than Paris (10.5).
The full list of European cities ranked by air quality is available online on the website of theAEE.