Almost 83% of European bathing sites meet the EU’s strictest water quality standards, says a new report by the European Environment Agency (EEA) published on Tuesday 1 June.
The EEA report, which analysed 22,276 bathing sites across the EU Member States, Albania and Switzerland throughout 2020, shows that 92.6% of the sites monitored met the EU minimum standards in this area.
Only 296 bathing sites, i.e. 1.3% of the sites monitored, had poor water quality, compared with 1.4% in 2019 and almost 2% in 2013, according to the Agency.
“The quality of European bathing waters remains high after four decades of action aimed at preventing and reducing pollution”, said Hans Bruyninckx, EEA Executive Director.
While previous years’ results were close to 85% (see EUROPE 12501/11, 11794/16), the percentage of excellent bathing water quality was slightly lower in 2020, due to a lack of data caused by delays in collection due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In terms of country rankings, Cyprus is the best performer, with 100% of its bathing water rated as excellent. The country is followed by Austria (97.7%), Greece (97.1%), Malta (96.6%) and Croatia (95.1%).
In 1991, the percentage of bathing waters in the EU considered to be of at least sufficient quality was only 74%.
Welcoming this development, EU Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius said: “This is good news for Europeans who will be heading to beaches and bathing sites this summer. This is the result of more than 40 years of the Bathing Water Directive, hard work by dedicated professionals, and cooperation”.
See the report: https://bit.ly/3uEzFdf (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)