PURPOSE : to enhance public health and environment protection by laying down provisions for the monitoring and classification of bathing water.

LEGISLATIVE ACT : Directive 2006/7/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning the management of bathing water quality and repealing Directive 76/160/EEC.

CONTENT : following the agreement reached by the Council and the European Parliament in the Conciliation Committee, the Council adopted this Directive concerning the management of bathing water quality and repealing Directive 76/160/EEC.

This Directive aims to enhance public health and environment protection by laying down provisions for the monitoring and classification of bathing water. It also provides for extensive public information and participation (in line with the Århus Convention) as well as for comprehensive and modern management measures.

The purpose of this Directive is to preserve, protect and improve the quality of the environment and to protect human health by complementing Directive 2000/60/EC.

This Directive shall apply to any element of surface water where the competent authority expects a large number of people to bathe and has not imposed a permanent bathing prohibition, or issued permanent advice against bathing. It shall not apply to:

a) swimming pools and spa pools;

b) confined waters subject to treatment or used for therapeutic purposes;

c) artificially created confined waters separated from surface water and groundwater.

Member States shall annually identify all bathing waters and define the length of the bathing season. They shall do so for the first time before the start of the first bathing season after 24 March 2008.

As stated this Directive will apply to surface water where a large number of people are expected to bathe, establishing a method for monitoring bathing water quality during the bathing season on the basis of two microbiological classification parameters (intestinal enterococci and escherischia coli) relevant for compliance with its provisions.

It provides for the assessment of water quality on the basis of the set of water quality data compiled during the bathing seasons, establishing 4 levels of classification (poor, sufficient, good and excellent), a classification of "poor" might leading to a permanent bathing prohibition.

The draft directive provides for the establishment of profiles describing the characteristics of the bathing water and identifying sources of pollution. The existence of pollution might result in the need for regular reviewing, information to the public and prohibition on bathing.

In order to ease the monitoring burden for Member States, the draft directive proposes reduced monitoring frequencies if the bathing water quality proves to be constantly “good” or “excellent”.

Directive 76/160/EEC will be repealed and replaced, to reflect scientific knowledge gained since 1976. The new directive will complement Directive 2000/60/EC (Water Framework Directive) as well as the Directives on urban wastewater treatment and on nitrates pollution from agricultural sources.

The issues which have been settled by conciliation concerned, in particular:

Public information and participation :

Member States should ensure that the public will find out how to participate in the implementation of the directive; the results of the monitoring will be available on the Internet upon completion of the analysis.

Standards and viruses :

for the "sufficient" category, the values of the parameter for "intestinal enterococci" become 330 for inland waters and 185 for coastal waters, based on a 90 percentile evaluation; plans should be drawn up for bathing waters with a "sufficient" profile showing measures planned to identify and assess sources of pollution and any measures planned to reduce the risk of pollution; these plans should set out an indicative timetable for any measures to improve the quality of the water; such plans should be disseminated; the Commission shall submit its report by 2008, with particular regard to the results of epidemiological studies, including in relation to viruses; Member States shall, by the end of 2014, submit written observations on the report in view of the Commission review of the directive; when reviewing the directive, the Commission shall verify whether it would be appropriate to modify the standards or to phase out the "sufficient" classification;

It should be noted that agreement had already been reached on a number of amendments to the common position, concerning particularly the following aspects:

for bathing water classified as "poor", the causes of pollution and measures taken will be indicated by a clear and simple warning sign; the current classification of the bathing water, as well as any temporary deterioration, bathing prohibition or advice against bathing, will be indicated to the public by a clear and simple sign or symbol; bringing forward by one year the deadline for the establishment of bathing water profiles; bringing forward by one year the deadline for implementation of the Directive; a requirement for Member States to disseminate information to the public in several languages when appropriate; the setting of a deadline of 2020 for the Commission’s review of the Directive.

ENTRY INTO FORCE : 24/03/2006.

TRANSPOSITION : 24/03/2008.

The European Parliament adopted a resolution approving the joint text drafted by the Conciliation Committee. (Please refer to the document dated 12/10/2005.) The joint text was adopted by 584 votes in favour to 11 against with 56 abstentions. The rapporteur was Jules MAATEN (ALDE, NL).

Out of the 26 amendments adopted, the Commission can accept 10 amendments in full, 1 amendment in part and a further 3 amendments in principle. 12 of the adopted amendments have been rejected.

The amendments accepted in full aim to: improve the provision of information to the public; make reference to directives dealing with access to environmental information and public participation in the drawing up of plans and programmes; bring forward respectively the dates for developing beach profiles and for the entry into force of the directive; allow the technical updating of the directive to include viruses as well as bacterial indicators.

The Commission has partially accepted the amendments concerning: the consultation and participation of interested parties in a number of the measures foreseen in the directive; the establishment by the Commission of an EU wide symbol or system of symbols for providing information to the public.

The Commission can accept in principle the amendment which proposes quality standards for the classification category “sufficient”, which are considerably more stringent than those in the Common

Position. While the standards as proposed in the amendment are far too severe to gain the necessary support in the Council, a certain degree of tightening up of the standards is one possible option for bridging the gap between the two institutions. The Commission can therefore accept the principle of this amendment in so much as it serves to develop an agreement between the Council and the Parliament.

Lastly, the Commission has rejected the amendments concerning emergency planning provisions which do not need to be included on a directive dealing with bathing water; seeking to advance the dates for compliance with the quality standards in the directive; the introduction of a new definition of short-term pollution which is ambiguous and difficult to implement and control; allowing calculation methods to be used in cases where water samples are not stored or processed correctly; seeking to limit the length of the time that the “sufficient” classification category remains in use to 8 years after the entry into force of the directive. As this would mean that the “sufficient” category would disappear by 2013 and the date for compliance with the quality standards is 2015, this amendment is not compatible with the rest of the text and cannot be accepted.

The European Parliament adopted the report by Jules MAATEN (ALDE, NL) amending the Council's common position. (Please refer to the summary dated 21/04/2005).

The European Parliament adopted the report by Jules MAATEN (ALDE, NL) amending the Council's common position. (Please refer to the summary dated 21/04/2005).

The committee adopted the report by Jules MAATEN (ALDE, NL) amending the Council's common position under the 2nd reading of the codecision procedure. A number of amendments focused on new elements introduced by the Council:

- a fourth, intermediate, category for bathing water standards ("sufficient quality") . The committee wanted to stick to the original classifications laid down by the Commission: "excellent quality" , "good quality" and "poor quality". It therefore deleted references to the new category, arguing that it would not improve the 1976 directive nor would it meet the minimum standards laid down by the World Health Organisation;

- mandatory application of the new classification scheme to be deferred until 2015 . As the Commission had originally suggested 5 years after the directive's entry into force, the committee felt that 2015 was far too late. It set the new date for achieving at least "good quality" status, as well as the chemical water status objectives laid down in the Water Framework Directive, at the end of the 2011 bathing season;

- a distinction between inland waters and coastal waters . The committee voted to abolish this distinction and reinstate the relevant provisions of the original Commission proposal;

- limiting the provisions on emergency plans . The committee reinstated Article 12 of the original Commission proposal, laying down detailed binding requirements such as emergency plans, surveillance and rapid response systems to cope with emergency situations. It also retabled a 1st reading amendment calling for the public to be clearly informed of potential hazards, in the event of an emergency, through temporary warning signs at the beach.

As well as amending the new elements to be found in the common position, the committee also reinstated various amendments to the original proposal adopted by Parliament at 1st reading:

- as part of a more user-friendly approach to information, Commission-approved symbols should be prominently displayed to inform the public about the current quality of bathing water at any particular site. The Commission should develop within two years "a simple standardised system of symbols" to be used by public authorities and tourist offices as a means to indicate water quality. The system should be made available on an EU website;

- if a bathing area has been removed from the list of bathing waters, the public should be informed of this fact through warning signs at the beach;

- information disseminated by the Member States should include at least an English and French translation;

- the results of water inspections should be available on the internet within a week;

- the directive should be reviewed by 2020, "with particular regard to the parameters for bathing water quality".

This proposal has been discussed under three Presidencies and the major impediment to achieving agreement has always been the stringency of the water quality standards. A significant number of Member States were concerned that the Commission's original proposal was unrealistic and that benefits in terms of improvements to public health would have been disproportionate to the costs.

The Commission would clearly have preferred to maintain the quality standards set out in its original proposal. However, the Commission is also anxious to ensure that the original Directive from 1976 is updated to: bring in more effective approaches to the management of bathing issues; better provisions for providing information to the public and improve monitoring regimes focused on the real health risks.

The Commission considers that the common position represents a significant improvement on the arrangements under the existing directive and can therefore support it. The Commission recognizes that there are outstanding concerns relating to the level of protection afforded by the new standards, particularly in freshwaters and is committed to address these concerns as part of a shared cost action under the 6 th Framework Programme.

The Council believes that the common position represents a balanced package of measures that would permit a much needed updating of Community rules on bathing water quality and enhance the level of public health protection in a staged and reasonable manner without placing an undue burden on the authorities concerned. It looks forward to constructive discussions with the European Parliament with a view to the early adoption of the Directive.

More specifically, the common position incorporates the majority of the European Parliament's first-reading amendments, either verbatim, in part or in spirit. However, it does not reflect a number of amendments because of inconsistency with the wording of Article 174 of the Treaty; in the view of the Council and the Commission, they would have unnecessarily duplicated existing requirements of the water framework Directive; or the Council considered them superfluous and potentially confusing.

It also includes a number of other changes. The following sections describe the changes of substance. In addition, there are drafting changes to clarify the text or to ensure the overall coherence of the Directive.

- Purpose, scope and definitions: the Council cannot agree to extend the scope of the Directive beyond bathing to apply to other recreational activities. Consequently, the common position includes no

reference to such activities. The definition of "bathing water" now appears in Article 1(3), since this term determines the scope of the Directive. Further definitions from the water framework Directive are incorporated and are consistent with a European Parliament amendment. It also defines other key terms,

namely "competent authority", "permanent", "large number", "pollution", "short term pollution", "cyanobacterial proliferation" and "public concerned".

- Monitoring: more flexibility regarding the location of the monitoring point is included. It also contains provisions on short term pollution and provides for the use of equivalent methods and rules under certain conditions, some of which may be clarified through comitology. Annex IV provides for an increased minimum sampling requirement compared to the Commission's original proposal, to increase the reliability of the statistical methodology. However, it also makes allowances for the particularly short bathing seasons prevailing in the north of the EU and special geographical constraints

(e.g., remote islands). There is no longer any direct link between the sampling frequency and classification.

- Quality assessment: the common position adopts 4 bathing seasons as the normal assessment period, but provides Member States with the option of choosing a period of 3 seasons under certain conditions. It indicates the minimum number of samples required and the circumstances in which the subdivision or grouping together of bathing waters may take place.

- Classification and quality status: several key innovations are incorporated compared to the Commission's original proposal. In particular it would defer the mandatory application of the new classification scheme until 2015 (to be consistent with the timetable of the Water Framework Directive); introduce a new classification ("sufficient") that would at least provide the same level of health protection as the minimum requirements of the existing Directive and act as a stepping stone to "good" or "excellent" quality; and clarify the circumstances in which bathing waters could temporarily be classified as being of "poor" quality. Annex I would provide for classifications to take place on the basis of two microbiological parameters. Requirements concerning other types of pollution would remain, but would not affect classification.

- Annex I provides for evaluations based on both a 95 and 90-percentile. The limit values for the "excellent and "good" classifications would be based on a 95-percentile evaluation, while that for "sufficient" would be based on a 90-percentile evaluation to reduce the risk of statistical anomalies when using a small data set. There are distinct limit values for inland and coastal waters. The scientific evidence currently available suggests that the presence of the same level of microbiological

contamination represents a higher health risk in salt water than in fresh water.

- Annex II is consistent with the broad principle underlying a European Parliament amendment, in that it provides that short term pollution would not affect a bathing water's classification if the competent authority takes appropriate measures to protect bathers' health.

- Bathing water profile: the common position clarifies that there could be a single profile for contiguous bathing waters. It extends the deadline for the establishment of the first profiles and the

interval between reviews, in recognition of the workload involved.

- Public participation: the definition of the "public concerned" in Article 2 clearly includes interested parties at the local level. The remainder of the amendment is superfluous in view of Article 18

and Directive 2003/4/EC.

- Information to the public: the common position groups all the general requirements to inform the public together in a single Article. It is consistent with two EP amendments which require information to be available promptly on the internet.

- Report and review: the Council agrees with the European Parliament that the Commission should review the implementation and operation of the Directive. However, it specifies some key issues that the Commission's report should address, particularly: the results of the epidemiological study that the Commission is to undertake as a matter of urgency to obtain greater scientific certainty regarding health risks associated with bathing, particularly in fresh water; WHO recommendations, which would equate to the "good" classification rather than to the minimum requirements of the Directive.

- Comitology: the common position contains a single provision listing the technical decisions that

could be taken through comitology. However, the Council believes that these decisions should be optional, not mandatory. Moreover, it cannot agree to the addition of new parameters on virus detection through comitology.

In addition, the common position contains: simplified rules on response measures in exceptional circumstances, the scope of which is now the same as the remainder of the Directive; and a requirement for Member States to carry out appropriate monitoring and to take necessary management measures to protect public health from cyanobacterial risks.

The Council believes that the common position represents a balanced package of measures that would permit a much needed updating of Community rules on bathing water quality and enhance the level of public health protection in a staged and reasonable manner without placing an undue burden on the authorities concerned. It looks forward to constructive discussions with the European Parliament with a view to the early adoption of the Directive.

More specifically, the common position incorporates the majority of the European Parliament's first-reading amendments, either verbatim, in part or in spirit. However, it does not reflect a number of amendments because of inconsistency with the wording of Article 174 of the Treaty; in the view of the Council and the Commission, they would have unnecessarily duplicated existing requirements of the water framework Directive; or the Council considered them superfluous and potentially confusing.

It also includes a number of other changes. The following sections describe the changes of substance. In addition, there are drafting changes to clarify the text or to ensure the overall coherence of the Directive.

- Purpose, scope and definitions: the Council cannot agree to extend the scope of the Directive beyond bathing to apply to other recreational activities. Consequently, the common position includes no

reference to such activities. The definition of "bathing water" now appears in Article 1(3), since this term determines the scope of the Directive. Further definitions from the water framework Directive are incorporated and are consistent with a European Parliament amendment. It also defines other key terms,

namely "competent authority", "permanent", "large number", "pollution", "short term pollution", "cyanobacterial proliferation" and "public concerned".

- Monitoring: more flexibility regarding the location of the monitoring point is included. It also contains provisions on short term pollution and provides for the use of equivalent methods and rules under certain conditions, some of which may be clarified through comitology. Annex IV provides for an increased minimum sampling requirement compared to the Commission's original proposal, to increase the reliability of the statistical methodology. However, it also makes allowances for the particularly short bathing seasons prevailing in the north of the EU and special geographical constraints

(e.g., remote islands). There is no longer any direct link between the sampling frequency and classification.

- Quality assessment: the common position adopts 4 bathing seasons as the normal assessment period, but provides Member States with the option of choosing a period of 3 seasons under certain conditions. It indicates the minimum number of samples required and the circumstances in which the subdivision or grouping together of bathing waters may take place.

- Classification and quality status: several key innovations are incorporated compared to the Commission's original proposal. In particular it would defer the mandatory application of the new classification scheme until 2015 (to be consistent with the timetable of the Water Framework Directive); introduce a new classification ("sufficient") that would at least provide the same level of health protection as the minimum requirements of the existing Directive and act as a stepping stone to "good" or "excellent" quality; and clarify the circumstances in which bathing waters could temporarily be classified as being of "poor" quality. Annex I would provide for classifications to take place on the basis of two microbiological parameters. Requirements concerning other types of pollution would remain, but would not affect classification.

- Annex I provides for evaluations based on both a 95 and 90-percentile. The limit values for the "excellent and "good" classifications would be based on a 95-percentile evaluation, while that for "sufficient" would be based on a 90-percentile evaluation to reduce the risk of statistical anomalies when using a small data set. There are distinct limit values for inland and coastal waters. The scientific evidence currently available suggests that the presence of the same level of microbiological

contamination represents a higher health risk in salt water than in fresh water.

- Annex II is consistent with the broad principle underlying a European Parliament amendment, in that it provides that short term pollution would not affect a bathing water's classification if the competent authority takes appropriate measures to protect bathers' health.

- Bathing water profile: the common position clarifies that there could be a single profile for contiguous bathing waters. It extends the deadline for the establishment of the first profiles and the

interval between reviews, in recognition of the workload involved.

- Public participation: the definition of the "public concerned" in Article 2 clearly includes interested parties at the local level. The remainder of the amendment is superfluous in view of Article 18

and Directive 2003/4/EC.

- Information to the public: the common position groups all the general requirements to inform the public together in a single Article. It is consistent with two EP amendments which require information to be available promptly on the internet.

- Report and review: the Council agrees with the European Parliament that the Commission should review the implementation and operation of the Directive. However, it specifies some key issues that the Commission's report should address, particularly: the results of the epidemiological study that the Commission is to undertake as a matter of urgency to obtain greater scientific certainty regarding health risks associated with bathing, particularly in fresh water; WHO recommendations, which would equate to the "good" classification rather than to the minimum requirements of the Directive.

- Comitology: the common position contains a single provision listing the technical decisions that

could be taken through comitology. However, the Council believes that these decisions should be optional, not mandatory. Moreover, it cannot agree to the addition of new parameters on virus detection through comitology.

In addition, the common position contains: simplified rules on response measures in exceptional circumstances, the scope of which is now the same as the remainder of the Directive; and a requirement for Member States to carry out appropriate monitoring and to take necessary management measures to protect public health from cyanobacterial risks.