An Incomprehensible Decision After Years of Waiting
A few weeks after the publication of the annual report on bathing water quality in Europe, the European Commission has just confirmed a decision that leaves us deeply disappointed: it does not consider it a priority to initiate a revision of the bathing water directive, which has been awaited for many years by ocean protection stakeholders.
This announcement is all the more incomprehensible given that the Commission itself had initiated a thorough evaluation of this directive several years ago, accompanied by an impact study whose conclusions were revealed last March. Paradoxically, this report highlights, without clearly mentioning it, that a revision would be welcome to better integrate new environmental and health challenges.
We deeply regret that the Commission is not seizing the opportunity to reopen the directive to reaffirm the crucial importance of protecting both aquatic ecosystems, impacted by numerous sources of pollution, and the health of the millions of people who enjoy recreational waters throughout the year.
Why is the revision of the directive crucial?
The directive concerning the management of bathing water quality was adopted in 2006, replacing an initial directive dating from 1976. Its current version is therefore nearly 20 years old. In two decades, environmental challenges have considerably evolved, as has our knowledge of pollutants and threats weighing on the Ocean. The current evaluation criteria no longer seem adapted to contemporary realities.
Certainly, the Commission congratulates itself in its recent report that 85% of European bathing waters are of excellent quality. But as we have been lamenting for years, and as we highlighted in our Manifesto for the quality of bathing and recreational waters in Europe, this evaluation is based on criteria that no longer reflect the complexity of current pollution. New chemical pollutants, cyanobacteria, microplastics, or even the evolution of recreational practices throughout the year are not sufficiently taken into account.
The current directive only covers bathing in officially designated areas based on their frequentation by bathers, leaving aside the millions of practitioners of nautical activities (surfing, paddle boarding, snorkeling) who operate outside these monitored perimeters. This limitation represents a real blind spot in terms of health and environmental protection.
An evaluation report that validates our recommendations
The most frustrating thing about this decision is that the conclusions of the evaluation report commissioned by the Commission itself are perfectly aligned with the recommendations of our Manifesto for healthy waters published in 2020.
Among the elements highlighted in its conclusions, the report acknowledges that it is possible to improve the real level of health and environmental protection provided by the directive, in accordance with the EU’s ambition regarding zero pollution and biodiversity. It also emphasizes the potential for improving coherence with other legal frameworks covering fresh, coastal and marine waters.
Several points in the report directly echo our demands:
➡️ On parameter monitoring: The report recommends, following WHO advice, that monitoring frequencies be better adapted to local realities and that cyanobacteria be taken into account in the classification system. It also recommends considering other pollutants and parameters (bacteria, viruses) based on human health risk management. We have long been calling for the addition of new parameters: waste, harmful algae, cyanobacteria and chemical pollution of surface waters.
➡️ On the need for year-round control: The report questions the notion of “large number of bathers” required for identifying a bathing site, deemed insufficiently defined. It emphasizes that changes in bathing habits, with an increase in activities throughout the year, should be taken into consideration. This is exactly what we are demanding: year-round health monitoring of water quality that would notably ensure the health safety of nautical activity practitioners who go in the water at any opportunity.
➡️ On policy harmonization: The report calls for better alignment of the classification system with monitoring systems and information available within other European directives. We have been requesting this harmonization for years to simplify the evaluation of freshwater and marine water quality and strengthen user health protection.
➡️ On public information and participation: The report recommends better harmonization of making information about bathing water quality available to the public. Our demands focus on more qualitative, accessible and better communicated information, with enhanced citizen participation.
Of our seven main recommendations, almost all are perfectly in agreement with the conclusions of the evaluation report.
How can we understand, under these conditions, that the Commission refuses to open a revision?
A “One Health” approach necessary
The current directive is not entirely aligned with World Health Organization recommendations and should better integrate the “One Health” approach, which aims to consider human health, animal health and environmental protection as an indivisible “whole.”
This global approach is essential to face current environmental challenges. The pollution that affects the Ocean and our recreational waters has interconnected impacts on all living beings. Ignoring this reality means taking the risk of allowing both our environment and our health to deteriorate.
Surfrider Foundation Europe does not give up
Despite this disappointing decision, we are not giving up. The protection of the Ocean and the health of the millions of Europeans who enjoy it are issues too important for us to abandon.
We call on all citizens, lovers of the Ocean and moments of well-being spent in the water, to become aware of the profound scope of this text and the importance of applying pressure for things to change. It is essential that the directive be revised to protect our health, but also and above all the Ocean and all the ecosystems it harbors.
The European Commission may have chosen not to act today, but citizen and scientific pressure will continue to grow. Public health and environmental protection issues are too crucial to be ignored indefinitely.
We will continue our mobilization, our advocacy actions and our awareness work. Because the Ocean and those who depend on it deserve better than a 20-year-old directive, unsuited to the challenges of the 21st century.
