Baltic and European news
P/06/761
Brussels, 9 June 2006
A large majority of bathing sites across the EU-25 continued to meet EU cleanliness standards in 2005, according to the annual bathing water report presented by the European Commission today. However, the proportion of compliant sites decreased slightly in coastal areas and more significantly at inland bathing sites like lakes and rivers. Coming just before the bathing season begins, the report provides useful water quality information for the millions of people who visit Europe's beaches each summer. While 96% of coastal bathing sites met the mandatory standards of the EU bathing water directive[1] last year, the proportion of inland waters in compliance continued to fall, decreasing by almost four percentage points to 86%. These falls were mainly due to insufficient sampling of water quality which counts as non compliance.
Stavros Dimas, Commissioner for Environment, said: "It is very encouraging that the water continues to be clean for bathers at well over 95% of Europe's coastal waters. However, I am concerned at the worsening compliance rate at inland bathing sites and would urge public authorities to step up the required testing and clean-up efforts. "
Summary of results
The report shows complete results for 20,914 bathing areas in the EU-25, 14,230 of them coastal and 6,684 inland.
Four EU-10 Member States reported for the first time this year: Hungary, Latvia, Malta and Poland. However, these Member States had a high number of bathing areas that were insufficiently sampled - 39% of the coastal areas and 43% of the freshwater zones. This significantly influenced the non-compliance figures for the EU-25 as a whole. The other six EU-10 Member States, reporting for the second time, showed a clear overall improvement in their results.
Coastal waters
For coastal bathing areas the proportion of sites complying with the mandatory standards fell slightly from 96.7% in 2004 to 96.1% last year. This was due to two factors - an increase in the number of zones where bathing was prohibited because the water quality was not up to standard, and inadequate sampling which made sites non-compliant.
The number of coastal sites meeting the directive's more stringent, but non-binding, 'guide' values increased from 88.5% in 2004 to 89.1%.
Inland waters
The results for freshwaters are less encouraging. For the mandatory standards the compliance rate was 85.6%, a further decline from 89.4% in 2004 and 92.4% in 2003. However, the decrease was partly due to a significant increase in the number of zones which were insufficiently sampled.
Compliance with the guide values, which are significant, but non-binding, also continued to decline, to 63.1% last year from 66.5% in 2004 and 67.9% in 2003. Insufficient sampling was the main factor.
Removing beaches from the official lists
Last year Member States deleted a further 103 coastal sites and 223 freshwater bathing zones from their national lists of sites that are subject to the directive's standards. The Commission has opened infringement cases against 11 Member States over the de-listing of around 7,000 sites since the 1990s (see IP/06/470). The Commission is concerned that in some cases bathing sites are being de-listed to mask pollution problems and artificially improve compliance results.
Where are the beaches located?
Under legislation[2] adopted in 1992, Member States are required to supply precise geographical coordinates for each bathing site. For 2005, however, no such information was provided for 2,300 zones, or 11% of the total, while for many others the coordinates supplied were incorrect. Consequently these beaches could not be mapped precisely in the national maps of bathing water quality for 2005 compiled by the Commission. Member States have been asked to remedy this situation.
Revision of the directive
Following agreement between the Council and European Parliament last October (IP/05/1264), a revised bathing water directive has been adopted which updates and simplifies the current standards. The new directive will be implemented progressively until the current directive is repealed at the end of 2014.
Format of the report
A summary of the report is available in all official languages, while detailed country reports are available in English on the Commission’s bathing water website at
http://www.ec.europa.eu/water/water-bathing/index_en.html
The website also contains maps and lists of bathing sites together with search functions. Lists of de-listed sites up to 2004 are also shown.
[1] Directive 76/160/EEC concerning the quality of bathing water
[2] Decision 92/446/EEC concerning questionnaires relating to Directives in the water sector