Bathing Water Quality: Commission moves against Denmark and Belgium

Brussels, 25 January 2001
The European Commission has decided to proceed to the Court of Justice against Denmark for the non-respect of the Bathing Water Quality Directive. With regard to Belgium, the Commission has decided to take the first steps in the procedure to enforce an earlier judgement of the Court. Commenting on the decision, Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström said: "I would urge both Denmark and Belgium to put the compliance of their bathing waters with Community standards at the top of their agenda for 2001"

The Bathing Water Quality Directive (Council Directive 76/160/EEC concerning the quality of bathing water) is important for public health, aiming to ensure that bathing waters meet minimum quality criteria by establishing a set of binding and guide (more stringent) Community standards for a range of key parameters (such as faecal indicator bacteria present) and by requiring Member States to carry out regular water quality monitoring. The legal deadline for complying with these standards expired in 1985. This action is part of a horizontal assessment of compliance with the Bathing Water Quality Directive across the Community.

With regard to Denmark, the decision has been taken to proceed to the Court of Justice. This is because Denmark has failed to ensure compliance with the limit values set in the Bathing Water Quality Directive for a number of bathing waters. Furthermore, Denmark has failed to ensure that the minimum sampling requirements set by the directive have been met.

With regard to Belgium, a Letter of Formal Notice (first warning letter) is being issued to ensure that Belgium conforms with the judgement of the Court of Justice in Case C- 307/98 which was given on 25 May 2000. The Court declared that Belgium had not conformed with the Bathing Water Quality Directive in failing to designate numerous inland waters and failing to ensure that numerous designated bathing waters meet the limit values set in the Directive. The Commission is of the opinion that Belgium has not presented remedial measures which can ensure timely compliance with the Court of Justice's judgement and has therefore decided to initiate the procedure foreseen under Article 228 of the Treaty to enforce the judgement. Article 228 gives the Commission power to act against any Member State, which fails to comply with a previous judgement of the European Court of Justice. The same Article also allows the Commission to ask the Court to impose a financial penalty on the Member State concerned if the infringement still persists after a 2^nd judgement by the Court

The Commission's Annual Report on Quality of Bathing Water published in May 2000 shows that the situation in Belgium and Denmark is still not satisfactory. The report can be found at the following web-site:

http://europa.eu.int/water/water-bathing/report.html