Ecology & Safety, Volume 11, 2017

Abstract: Conception documents are significant instrument required by environmental legal acts, both at EU and national law levels. They became integral part of air protection legislation. Pursuant to Directive 2001/81/EC Member States were obligated to draw up programmes for the progressive reduction of national emissions of the pollutants referred to in Art. 4 of the Directive. Directive 2008/50 requires Member States to establish air quality plans and short term action plans. Czech Republic transposed both Directives to the national legislation. Despite this, it is among 17 Member States in which the limit values for PM10 have not respected and against which the Commission launched the infringement procedure. The aim of this contribution is to explain purpose of these conception documents, to find out if they have potential to contribute to good quality of the air and what possible obstacles to their effectiveness can occur. The attention will be focused at legal character of these plans and programmes and their relation to other regulatory instruments.