Luxembourg remains unhealthily loud despite action plans

By Misch Pautsch Switch to German for original article

Too many people in Europe are suffering mentally and physically from too much noise and not enough is being done about it. This finding in a special report by the European Court of Auditors comes as relatively little surprise to anyone with ears.

Luxembourg is a noisy place – the Journal has already reported on this in a previous article. This excessive noise level is the rule in Europe, as a special report states, despite all the health consequences. One in five people are exposed to harmful noise levels: "In Europe, 48,000 new cases of heart disease and 12,000 premature deaths each year are attributable to long-term exposure to environmental noise."

According to the EU's action plan, the member states are supposed to get their noise problem under control by 2030 and, in particular, reduce the number of people affected by transport noise by 30 per cent. However, despite the approaching deadline, the targets remain a long way off, according to the report. As no binding limit values have been set, only guidelines, the issue is not being prioritised. Although the member states are obliged to draw up strategic noise maps and develop action plans based on them, many of them have yet to do so. Only seven of them have so far submitted all the maps (on noise on roads, railways, in air traffic and in urban centres), among them: Luxembourg. The corresponding action plans also exist. So are we a model pupil when it comes to noise abatement?

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