Greece, Bulgaria being taken to court by EU over air pollution

The European Commission will take Bulgaria and Greece to the EU Court of Justice after both countries breached air pollution limits for years despite multiple warnings, the Commission said on Thursday.

The two cases are the latest in a string of EU legal actions over poor air quality in countries including France, Italy and Romania, as Brussels seeks to clamp down on violations that threaten human health and the bloc's pollution targets.

The Commission said it will refer Bulgaria to the EU's top court for exceeding legal limits on particulate matter from 2015-2019 even after the court ordered the country's government to address the issue in 2017. Bulgaria could face financial penalties for flouting the earlier ruling.

Bulgaria is one of the heaviest offenders in the European Union in terms of exceeding both annual and daily limits on particulate matter, the...