Opinion of the Committee of the Regions on the "Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council Developing a New Bathing Water Policy"
Date: 2001-06-14
Institutions: European Committee of the Regions
Subjects: bathing water, consumer protection, dissemination of information, environmental monitoring, environmental protection, public health

14.12.2001

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 357/51

Opinion of the Committee of the Regions on the ‘Communication from the Commission to the
European Parliament and the Council “Developing a New Bathing Water Policy”’

(2001/C 357/13)

THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS,

having regard to the Communication from the Commission on Developing a New Bathing Water Policy
COM(2000) 860 final;

having regard to the decision of its Bureau of 13 June 2000 to draw up, in accordance with the fifth
paragraph of Article 265 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, an opinion on Developing
a New Bathing Water Policy, and to assign the preparation of this opinion to Commission 4 for Spatial
Planning, Urban Issues, Energy and Environment;

having regard to the draft opinion (CdR 97/2001 rev.) adopted by Commission 4 on 3 May 2001
(rapporteur: Mr Vito D’Ambrosio — I, PSE);

whereas the Treaty on European Union calls for environmental considerations to be integrated into all
Community policies, with a view to securing sustainable development,

adopted the following opinion unanimously at its 39th plenary session on 13 and 14 June 2001 (meeting
of 14 June).

1. Position of the Committee of the Regions

The Committee of the Regions welcomes the European
1.1.
Commission’s communication on developing a new bathing
water policy. The policy is urgently needed, and is designed to
enable further progress along the path towards proper respect
for the environment and public health.

1.2.
The Committee believes that the new policy could
also generate further economic growth in the Community,
benefiting above all those areas that are committed to respect-
ing and improving the environment, by both protecting the
natural heritage and using ever higher standards of services
and infrastructure to improve quality of life.

the cause, natural or human. The resulting anoxia of the water,
with the possibility of fish dying, floating and decaying in
bathing water, poses a health and environmental danger and
is also aesthetically unpleasant. These phenomena must be
monitored, especially if the marine resources are prone to
them. In northern Europe, the bathing season lasts only about
a month and the number of bathers is low compared with
southern Europe. The Committee feels that these differences
should be taken into account. In the Committee’s view, a
bathing area should be defined as one that has been actively
launched as a bathing area and is used by a significant number
of bathers every season. Sampling should be organised so that
areas with the highest risk are monitored more often. The
criteria applicable to bathing areas with short bathing seasons
must be such that the consequences of a negative sample do
not hit these areas harder, given that there is not time to take
such a complete series of samples.

2. Recommendations of the Committee of the Regions
regarding the plan for a new bathing water policy

2.1.
The Committee recommends that the Commission pay
special attention to the procedures for assessing eutrophic
phenomena. These phenomena are often considered to be
anomalies in the ecosystem and to be caused by pollution, but
frequently they stem from an increase in plankton, resulting
from natural events that have been happening for centuries
and that do not therefore pose any of the specific risks
associated with pollutants.

2.2.
Eutrophic events on a very large scale, however,
become a genuine environmental emergency, irrespective of

In this connection, the Committee recommends that
2.3.
the Commission clearly address the growing problem of algae
bloom and the danger to bathers posed by algae-borne toxins.
A single nutrient parameter is not enough to describe in any
meaningful way the nutrient status in relation to massive algae
growth.

2.4.
The Committee would point out to the Commission
that one of the key factors in improving the efficiency of the
monitoring analysis is speedy results that enable a rapid
reaction. This requirement must be linked as a priority to the
parameters aimed at safeguarding human health and to those
used to indicate changes in water quality.

C 357/52

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

14.12.2001

2.5.
To this end, the Committee proposes that the monitor-
ing mentioned in the Communication should include
ammoniacal nitrogen, nitrous acid and nitric acid among the
substances used to determine the degree of pollution and its
development, as their presence can be determined relatively
quickly enabling rapid responses, while waiting for bacterio-
logical results, which take longer.

2.6.
The Committee would stress the importance of accu-
rate, standardised public information. More specifically, when
pollution makes the water unsuitable for bathing, the infor-
mation provided must not be misleading or open to interpret-
ation but rather visible and clear, possibly using symbols,
especially when indicating the cause of the pollution. This
information should cover various aspects:

— the site, characteristics and critical factors;

— unfavourable meteorological/climatic and marine con-

ditions affecting water quality;

— the quality change assessed analytically.

2.7.
The Committee would also stress the importance of
allowing the regions and local authorities to make a positive
contribution in the next stages of deciding on the technical
and scientific details of the new European directive, through
their own structures or local independent bodies responsible
instance the regional
for environmental protection,

for

Brussels, 14 June 2001.

environmental protection agencies existing in Italy and other
Member States.

2.8.
The Committee would stress that attention must be
given to timing and the resources needed to make the necessary
improvements to restore and protect the quality of bathing
waters. These measures too must be assessed on two distinct
levels:

— action and measures concerning exceptional and unfore-

seen events;

— action needed to deal with inadequate infrastructure,
differentiating between small- and large-scale invest-
ments. In this respect, the Committee draws the Com-
mission’s attention to the extremely high cost for local
authorities of any requirement to separate sanitary sewers
from storm-water sewers. Such a measure should only be
implemented if a preliminary assessment demonstrated
the risks, in the area at risk considered, of maintaining a
single sewerage system.

2.9.
The Committee therefore invites the Commission not
to rule out the deployment of adequate financial resources for
the above-mentioned measures,
to top up the resources
provided by the Member States and regions concerned.

2.10.
The Committee would ask the Commission to bring
the deadlines set in the new bathing water directive and the
water framework directive into line with each other.

The President

of the Committee of the Regions

Jos CHABERT