Most of Europe’s bathing waters safe for swimming: report

COPENHAGEN: More than three quarters of bathing waters monitored in the European Union, Albania and Switzerland were of “excellent” quality in 2024, the 27-member bloc´s environment agency said on Friday.

All but four percent met the EU´s minimum standard (“sufficient”) and just 1.5 percent were of “poor” quality, the European Environment Agency said in its annual update on the beaches, rivers and lakes that are tested for faecal contamination.

Overall, Europe´s bathing waters were of the same standard in 2024 as in the year before.

The EEA monitors more than 22,000 bathing areas for bacteria such as Escherichia coli (E. coli) and intestinal enterococci, caused essentially by pollutant run-off from livestock farms and household sewage pipes.

“Europeans can confidently bathe in the vast majority of the EU´s bathing sites that meet the EU´s bathing quality standards,” European Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall said.

The best bathing waters last year were in Cyprus, where 99.2 percent were of excellent quality, followed by Bulgaria with 97.9 percent, Greece with 97 and Croatia with 95.2.

The EU-wide average was 85 percent.

Albania came bottom in the ranking, with just 16 percent of excellent quality bathing waters -- a drop of more than 25 percentage points over the space of a year. Poland was second from bottom at 58.1 percent -- a slight improvement from 2023.