In 2017, 96% of bathing sites in Europe met binding minimum quality standards fixed by European legislation, and 85% of the sites were close to excellence, as they complied with the strictest guide values, indicative of the European directive on the quality of bathing water (2006/7/EC).
These figures were published on Tuesday 29 May by the European Environment Agency (EEA) and by the European Commission in the annual report on bathing water quality in Europe, which relates to the previous bathing season. Quality surveillance applied to some 21,801 coastal and inland waters that were taken as a sample in the 28 member states of the EU and also in Switzerland and Albania.
Five countries are in the champions league when it comes to bathing water quality: Luxembourg (100% of all sites), Malta (98.9%), Cyprus (97.3%), Greece (95.9%) and Austria (95.1%).
Minimum standards were met in all bathing sites of ten countries (Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, Romania, Slovenia, and also Switzerland).
The largest number of bathing sites where water quality was poor were to be found in Italy (1.4%), France (2.4%) and Spain (1.7%).
The 2016 performances were slightly better with 96.3% of sites complying with minimum standards and 85.5% of sites close to excellence – a drop that the EEA explains by the summer rainfall and changes in testing methods in Romania and Sweden. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)