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29th Mar 2024

Taking a dip getting safer in EU

  • Although bathing water quality across Europe remains high, there was a slight decline on last year (Photo: Nikolaj Bock/norden.org)

Trunks-and-bikini-clad Europeans and foreign tourists will be happy to know that as they take to the seas, rivers and lakes of the continent for a dip this year, the water quality has remained high, according to the European Commission's annual bathing water quality report, issued on Monday (2 June).

The study, which is designed to be user-friendly for citizens – with an accompanying colour-coded online map system rather than a document legible only to denizens of the Brussels institutions - found that though water quality in Europe's bathing areas is good, there has been a slight decline on last year.

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"It's not exactly as good as it was in 2006," said environment commissioner Stavros Dimas to reporters at the launch of the report. "We have notice a slight decrease in quality."

The UK in particular saw a ten-fold increase in areas not complying with European hygiene standards, with the number of 'dirty' beaches climbing from 0.4 percent in 2006 to 3.5 percent the last year.

"I'm a bit concerned," said the commissioner when questioned about the state of Britain's bathing sites.

The commissioner singled out Luxembourg for praise. In 2006 new bathing water legislation was adopted that emphasised the provision of information to citizens about water quality at beaches they commonly frequented in the summertime. EU countries had until March of this year to pass national laws in this regard, but until 2015 to fully implement them.

Luxembourg however, decided to move ahead with implementation for the 2007 bathing season.

Austrian rivers, lakes the cleanest

The top spots for a plunge were found to be Greece, Cyprus, Finland and the Netherlands, with Austria's inland waters the cleanest.

Meanwhile, sites not meeting EU standards were on the rise in France, Germany and Sweden.

In Italy, the number of beaches that had been closed to swimmers amounted to 300 last year, up from 263 in 2006 and 125 in 2002.

Much of the Baltic Sea coast met EU mandatory standards, but when it came to the more stringent 'guide values', Poland and Estonia scored quite poorly, with only 34 percent and 41 percent respectively meeting the higher standard.

The report also notes that between Romania and Bulgaria – the new member states who began reporting the quality of their bathing waters last year - the "difference is striking" in terms of compliance with mandatory quality standards – 90 percent for Bulgaria, but just 29 percent in Romania.

The report is based on results supplied by authorities in each member state, of tests for the presence of faecal bacteria, residues of petrol-based mineral oils, detergent, toxic acids such as phenol and overall water colour. Other tests investigate the presence of salmonella in the water, and its acidity.

Member states have in the past been tempted to remove sites from the list of available places to go for a swim – a move known as 'de-listing' in Brussels jargon.

"More often than not, we suspect that de-listing is done to avoid the proper cleaning up of bathing sites," said Mr Dimas.

However, this year, the commissioner said he was happy to see number of de-listed sites was down by half. "I hope this trend continues," he said and encouraged member states to "work towards full compliance of all bathing sites – inland and on the coast."

Environmental groups praised the commission for the website's ease of use for citizens. Sergey Moroz, water policy officer with WWF Europe, said: "It's something the European Commission is doing quite well."

"It's not easy to translate such data into something that can be readily understood by citizens. The colour coding and the map make is really useful for someone wanting to check to see if the beach they're planning on visiting is safe."

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