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Bathing Water

Volume 229: debated on Wednesday 21 July 1993

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To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will set out, in tabular form, how many waters, in each of the EC countries, failed to meet their obligations under the bathing water directive; how many met the mandatory water quality standard; and how many complied with the directive's guideline standards.

[holding answer 19 July 1993]: Drawing from the latest EC report, "Quality of Bathing Water 1992", the details of compliance with the coliform standards for seawater bathing areas are as follows:

Meeting standards
CountryFailing mandatory standardsMandatoryGuideline
Belgium4357
Denmark601,1131,009
Germany119328257
Meeting standards
CountryFailing mandatory standardsMandatoryGuideline
Greece381,1651,141
Spain961,239988
France4131,5191,121
Ireland58577
Italy3423,6913,428
Netherlands63832
Portugal38188170
United Kingdom97358163
The Commission accepts that there is a degree of imprecision in the results from the different countries, which arises from differences in analytical methods.