The latest report published by the European Commission on European bathing water quality was published in May 2005, comprising for the first time 21 countries, including 6 new Member States - Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia.

The coastal waters seem to reach a rather good rate of compliance to the 1976 Bathing Water Directive in all Member states. But the results concerning inland water stressed some differences between old and new Members, the latest reaching only 46% of compliance, while the former reach 89.4%.

However, there is a tendency from old countries’ inland bathing areas to become less compliant. Indeed, we notice a significant drop from a rate of 92.3% in 2003. Also, this tendency in old Member states is worsened by two others. One is the deletion of sites from their official list of designated bathing areas, making these no longer subject to the directive. The other one is the banning of bathing in non-compliant listed sites without taking action to improve their quality.

This course of action is in contradiction with the directive, and the Commission intends to discuss this issue with the member states concerned. Moreover, it has proposed a revision of the Bathing Water Directive (see IP/02/1551) which is currently being discussed in the European Parliament and Council.

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