Brussels, 31/05/2007 (Agence Europe) - In 2006, 96% of coastal bathing areas and 89% of bathing sites in rivers and lakes are in compliance with the mandatory values. These results are better than those in 2005. The removal of bathing sites from the official list has decreased but the Commission remains concerned about the delistings. These are the main conclusions of the annual report on bathing water which the Commission presented on 31 May.
For coastal bathing areas, the proportion of sites complying with the mandatory standards remained constant at 96.1%. The number of coastal sites meeting the directive's more stringent, but non-binding, guide values decreased from 89.1% in 2005 to 88.4%. The results for freshwaters show that they are regaining some of the ground lost in 2005. For the mandatory standards, the compliance rate in 2006 was 88.6% compared to 85.7% in 2005. Compliance with the guide values increased slightly from 63.1% in 2005 to 63.8% in 2006. The positive results are mainly due to better sampling.
In 2006, member states removed 88 coastal sites and 166 freshwater bathing zones from their national lists of sites subject to the directive's standards. The Commission is concerned that in some cases bathing sites are being de-listed to mask pollution problems and artificially improve compliance results without tackling the problem at source. The Commission has opened infringement cases against 11 member states over de-listing. Despite the “encouraging results” results of the report Stavros Dimas remains “very concerned by the number of bathing sites withdrawn from the list”. The commissioner for the environment believes that “Removing sites from the list because they are polluted is not a solution. Member states must instead draw up plans for cleaning up these polluted sites."
The EU15 EU member states continue to have higher compliance rates than new member states. But in 2006 compliance in the old member states decreased slightly, while in the new member states compliance increased by about 25 percentage points. Two years after joining the EU, compliance with mandatory values in the new member states is 94.9% for coastal waters and 81.2% for fresh water bathing areas, compared to 96.2% and 90.0% for the old member states. A summary of the report: (http: //ec.europa.eu/water/water-bathing/index_en.html). (ol)