Air pollution

A few days after the European Commission announced that car emissions will be reported in real terms, a team of the Spanish RSLab, which will remotely measure vehicle emissions temporarily and without the need to stop them, is coming to the capital. This was announced by the Sofia Municipality.

According to the latest readings of the air quality monitoring station in Sofia's Druzhba residential districts, the concentration of fine dust particles in the air there is the highest in Sofia, according to Standart News. 

The information has been announced by the Executive Agency for Environment (EAE), as quoted by the Focus news agency.

'One of the main priorities of the Bulgarian Ministry of Environment and Waters is clean air.''

This was announced by the Minister of Environment and Waters, Neno Dimov, at a press conference aimed at presenting environmental priorities in the government's program for the period 2017-2021, reported BGNES. 

The German environment ministry has rejected calls from two of the country's states for tax incentives to promote the sale of low-emission modern diesel and electric cars.

Serbian PM Ana Brnabic and Chairman of China's National People's Congress Zhang Dejiang on Monday visited the Kostolac B power plant in eastern Serbia.

Brbanic said that the project of building a flue-gas desulfurization (FGD) facility in the power plant's B1 and B2 blocks was completed in cooperation with China.

The Health Ministry is warning people in Athens who have respiratory ailments and heart conditions as well as those with sensitive health to avoid being outdoors due to high levels of ozone.

The majority of Western Balkan countries rely on thermal power plants and many of the new plants which are being built do not comply with the newly approved EU standards for environment protection, the Independent Balkan News Agency reported. 

The Hellenic Society of Cardiology will be marking World No Tobacco Day Wednesday by launching a competition coordinated by the Education Ministry whereby students from across Greece will submit drawings to do with smoking and its consequences.

Sofia's municipal council has approved an updated programme for air quality management until 2020, FOCUS News Agency reports.

The programme was approved by 52 councilors, while three abstained.

Stricter European Union pollutant limits could lead to costly upgrades or the closure of one third of Europe's large-scale coal power plant capacity, a report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) showed on Monday.