Virginijus Sinkevičius explains European Union’s plans for tackling pollution

The EU and the other countries in the world are being forced to move much faster in the battle against climate change and pollution. EU Commissioner for the Environment, Ocean, and Fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevičius spoke to Euronews’ Shona Murray.

During the conversation Sinkevičius while talking about his targets when it comes to ending soil pollution, sea pollution, air pollution said, “the most effective way to address pollution is, of course, to make it that it doesn’t happen because then the situation gets very complicated. And this is where we are. We have premature deaths caused by pollution. We have diseases linked to pollution. We have ecosystem destruction linked with pollution.”

When answering about his views on how the industry will have to change or alter to ensure that there’s less pollution, he added, “Our goal, of course, is to replace or completely exclude harmful chemicals from our market, from the products. We still have, I would say, very unequal legislation where in some products it’s very clearly banned already for a while, and in others, they are not. Those products are easily accessible to children, to women, to elderly people. So there are, of course, more vulnerable groups, which we, of course, need to protect as a priority.”

During the talk, EU Commissioner Sinkevičius answered several questions about vaccines in Europe, the environment, and recent legislation.