This was the bold statement made by President of the ECR Group, Marco Marsilio, and echoed by fellow Italian members, Roberto Ciambetti and Matteo Bianchi during the ENVE Commission meeting of the European Committee of the Regions. 

Up for discussion and adoption was the CoR opinion on the revision of the air quality directive, which calls for continuous alignment with the even stricter values ​​promoted by the World Health Organization – "a truly ambitious objective, that is realistically unattainable for a territory like that of Lombardy", declared Mr Bianchi, councillor in Varese.

President Marsilio added that "unfortunately, in Italy our citizens are exposed to levels of air pollution that far exceed the established limits and this poses serious threats to health and is pushing Italy to the top of the EU ranking with the largest percentage of premature deaths attributable to fine particulate matter". However, despite huge efforts to reduce emissions, Italy still exceeds the limit value set by the European Union air quality directive, and therefore, "it will be impossible to guarantee WHO alignment", declared Mr Marsilio.

The President of the Veneto Regional Council, Roberto Ciambetti, reiterated that the directive must take "the diversity of the EU's territories into account, in particular, their specific orographic and climatic conditions", urging that the objectives contained within the directive must overcome ideologies. 

During his intervention, Mr Bianchi shared some stark facts on what it would mean for the Po Valley in Italy to concretely achieve these objectives: "The Lombardy Environmental Protection Agency believes that it would be necessary to reduce vehicle numbers by 65%, reduce methane emissions by 75% or close down 60 pig and cow farms". He concluded by stating that "this would just not be realistic at all".