Brussels, 09/06/2006 (Agence Europe) - The European Union has no cause to blush over the quality of its bathing water. The annual report which has just been published by the European Commission for the previous year's bathing season reveals that using the yardstick of the bacteriological and physico-chemical criteria of directive 76/160/EC, 96.1% of the costal waters of the EU-25 complied with the minimum obligatory quality in 2005 - an honourable result, but nevertheless slightly lower than the previous year (96.7%). The compliance rate for with the directives' target values, which are stricter but non-binding, improved, reaching 89.1% in 2005 (compared to 88.5% in 2004)
The quality of inland waters (rivers and lakes), which is traditionally lower according to the trend observed over the last few years, dropped slightly with a rate of just 85.6% compliance with the minimum standards required (compared to 89.4% in 2004). The rate of compliance with the target values continued to decline, dropping to 63.1% (compared with 66.5% in 2004 and 67.9% in 2003).
The report summarises the data provided by all of the Member States and covers 20 914 bathing sites in the EU, 14 230 of them in coastal waters and 6 684 inland sites. It contains for the first time data from Hungary, Latvia, Malta and Poland - four countries which, having failed to conduct sufficient sampling of their waters (only 39% of costal areas and 43% of freshwater areas) recorded very poor performances, which may be misleading, and caused the overall EU score to plummet.
The six other new Member States which figure in the report for the second year in a row, on the other hand, have slightly improved in their results. Cyprus is the champion in all categories with 100% compliance in its costal waters in terms of both the minimum required standards and the indicative target values. Lithuania marked itself out with its excellent score for the quality of its freshwater with 98.2% compliance with the obligatory standards (compared to 58.5% the previous year).
“Summer has begun. Millions of people from Europe and the rest of the world will holiday in our countries. They must know that our bathing waters are clean, as they are meant to be in order to avoid the risk of infection. The European directive of 1976 protects public health by demanding compliance with cleanliness standards. This year, we have adopted the revised directive which will progressively modernise the current legislation. This text is important not only for public health but also for the economy, as bathing waters are important to tourist activities”, declared Stavros Dimas, Environment Commissioner , presenting the report to the press. Although he was generally satisfied with the relatively stable quality of costal waters, the Commissioner declared himself concerned by the decline of freshwater, which comprise 15% of sites which do not comply with the requirements of EU legislation, twice the percentage of the two years ago. “I hope that these four new Member States will step up their sampling in order to reset the bar next year, as the six Member States which had the finger pointed at them last year for the same shortcomings have done” said Mr Dimas. But the old Member States have also faced criticism. The Commissioner reproached them for de-listing polluted sites in order to prevent bathing, rather than carrying out clean-up operations on them, as they are supposed to do. Thus many bathing sites have simply vanished from the national lists of sites subject to the requirements of the directive (103 beaches and 223 inland water areas in 2005 and some 7000 sites since 1990). “This has happened without explanation. Which explains the infringement procedures against 11 Member States”, Commissioner Dimas stressed. The directive allows a site to be de-listed because bathers do not use it, but certainly not in order to erase pollution as though by magic. “We await the response of the Member States to know their justification for this de-listing”, Mr Dimas said.
We should recall that the directive 160/EEC set obligatory minimum requirements to guarantee good water quality and also indicative values which the Member States are encouraged to comply with in order to achieve excellence. The revised directive modernises and simplifies the implementation of this legislation by concentrating on the two parameters deemed the most relevant by the World Health Organisation. (The detailed report and the bathing maps by country can be consulted online at this address: http: //http://www.ec.europa.eu/water/water-bathing/index_en.html ).