Samenvatting

Research on the implementation of air-quality directives in the Netherlands shows that national and local governments have taken substantial measures to increase air quality. Still, the norms of the directive are not met. Besides, as a result of the focus on norms, insufficient attention has been paid to the objective of the directive, namely improving health. To examine this, a case study on the implementation of the directive within four Dutch cities has been conducted by their local audit services. This shows that, due to the enforcement capacity of the EU (Sverdrup, 2007), that was made effective through the national courts, the Dutch national and local authorities have taken substantial measures. Domestic preferences and the characteristics of the Netherlands’ public law system, contributed to this. In line with Sverdrup’s (2007) ideas on the domestic management capacity of member states, insufficient measures were taken to meet the norm because responsibilities were not clearly distributed between national and local governments and because of conflicting policy aims. Since this takes place during a drawn-out implementation process, the participating actors need clear information about the progress that is made the policy can improve and be enforced during the implementation phase. Independent, local and national, auditors can help the European Committee to provide this insight.