Brussels, 20/05/2015 (Agence Europe) - The European Union, a favoured tourist destination, can continue to prize the high quality of its coastal and inland bathing waters.
In 2014, 95% of the monitored bathing sites in the European Union met minimum standards for water quality and water quality was “excellent” at 83 % of the sites, states the latest annual report by the European Environment Agency (EEA) and the European Commission that was published on Wednesday 20 May (see EUROPE 11089).
All the bathing sites in Cyprus, Luxembourg, and Malta had excellent water quality. These countries were followed by Greece, where 97% of bathing sites monitored met the required standards, as did 94% of sites in Croatia and 90% in Germany.
These results show that “policies work and contribute to our quality of life when they are ambitious, well-defined and well-implemented”, said EEA Executive Director Hans Bruyninckx in a press release.
Only 2% of bathing sites across Europe - a total of 409 sites - failed to meet the bathing water directive's minimum standards. According to the report, the highest numbers of bathing sites with poor water quality were found in Italy (107 bathing sites, 2%), France (105 bathing sites, 3%) and Spain (67 bathing sites, 3%), all three important tourist destinations.
The report notes that the proportion of bathing sites scoring highly was slightly higher on the European coast (97% of sites met the minimum standards) than inland (91% of rivers and lakes).
For further information, go to: http://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/water/interactive/bathing/state-of-bathing-waters (Mathieu Bion)