EU beaches vanish into legal loophole
05.04.06 @ 09:41
Member states have been removing their beaches from official national lists to avoid having to keep them up to EU guidelines on clean water.
According to Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet, the European Commission will later this week release a statement saying that taking beaches off the official list should not be the way to deal with the problem of pollution.
The EU bathing water directive "is helping to ensure that millions of bathers can enjoy clean bathing water during the summer months," says EU environment commissioner Stavros Dimas.
The commission has already sent written warnings to several member states on the issue including Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.
In total, 7,000 bathing sites were removed from official lists since the early 1990s, according to EU data.
"Explanations from the 11 member states are currently lacking, and the commission has therefore asked them to justify their cancellation of previously recognized bathing sites," said the commission.
