CJEU Judgment: Germany systematically and persistently exceeded limit values for nitrogen dioxide between 2010 and 2016

By this judgment, the Court of Justice held that Germany had infringed the Air Quality Directive by systematically and persistently exceeding, as from 1 January 2010 up to and including 2016, the annual limit value for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in 26 of the 89 zones and agglomerations assessed.

The infringement concerns the agglomeration of Berlin, the agglomeration and district of Stuttgart, the district of Tübingen, the agglomeration of Freibourg, the district of Karlsruhe (without agglomerations), the agglomeration of Mannheim/Heidelberg, the agglomeration of Munich, the agglomeration of Nuremberg/Fürth/Erlangen, Zone III Central and Northern Hesse, the agglomeration I Rhine-Main, the agglomeration II Kassel, the agglomeration of Hamburg, Grevenbroich (Rhineland mining area), Cologne, Düsseldorf, Essen, Duisburg/Oberhausen/Mülheim, Hagen, Dortmund, Wuppertal, Aachen, urban and rural areas in North Rhine-Westphalia, Mainz, Worms/Frankenthal/Ludwigshafen and Koblenz/Neuwied.

Furthermore, Germany infringed the directive by systematically and persistently exceeding, during that period, the hourly limit value for NO2 in two of those zones, namely the agglomeration of Stuttgart and the agglomeration I Rhine-Main.

In addition, by not adopting, as from 11 June 2010, appropriate measures to ensure compliance with the limit values for NO2 in all the zones at issue, Germany has failed to fulfil its obligations under the directive and, in particular, the obligation to ensure that air quality plans provide appropriate measures so that the period during which the limit values are exceeded is kept as short as possible.

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