Twinning project - Strengthening the central and local level capacities for environmental management in the area of air quality


Air pollution caused by human activities such as energy production, industry and traffic can cause high concentrations of different pollutants with significant impacts to the human health. For years, the European Union has been working to improve the air quality and reduce the harmful impacts on human health and environment in Europe by controlling the emissions of harmful substances, issuing legislation for permissible levels of pollutant concentrations, conducting research on health effects of pollutants and focusing the international cooperation to reduce the cross-boundary pollution. Even though the levels of some harmful pollutant concentrations have been significantly reduced, the air quality continues to cause negative health effects in Europe. 

Despite the moderate economic growth and relatively slow development of the heavy industry, Macedonia has significant problems with the air pollution. Intensive urbanisation and significant increase of traffic volumes are among the main reasons for this. In order to protect the environment and the health of the population in the country, there is a strong need for acceleration of the process of strengthening the administrative and technical capacities in the area of air quality management on central and local level.

The European Union is financing a Twinning project ‘Strengthening the central and local level capacities for environmental management in the area of air quality’ with an aim of improving the air quality administration in the country. The project continues the work and builds on the achievements of the air quality improvement Twinning project finished in 2008. The project duration is 24 months (September 2010-August 2012) with a budget of 1 million EUR.