Greek waters rank among the cleanest in Europe, placing in the top five for bathing quality, according to a new report by the European Environment Agency (EEA), an official body of the European Union. The 2024 assessment, published Friday, analyzed the quality of over 22,000 coastal and inland bathing sites across the Continent, confirming that the vast majority of Europe’s bathing waters are clean and safe for swimming.
The testing found that over 85 percent of monitored locations of the 27 EU members plus Albania and Switzerland met the European Union’s most stringent ‘excellent’ bathing water quality standards last year, while 96 percent of all officially identified bathing waters in the EU met the minimum quality standards.
The quality of bathing waters in a country is classified according to two microbiological parameters, Escherichia coli and intestinal enterococci, considering the minimum quality standards defined in the Bathing Water Directive (BWD).
The 29 countries had 97.9 percent of their bathing waters tested are in line with the minimum quality standards, thus classified as “sufficient” or better. Only 1.5 percent of Europe’s waters were rated “Poor”.
The quality of coastal bathing waters is generally better than that of rivers and lakes. In 2024, around 89 percent of coastal bathing waters in the EU were classified as excellent, compared with 78 percent of inland bathing waters.
In Greece, a total of 1729 samples were taken, with only one of them being inland bathing water (lake, river). Out of the 1729, 1677 were rated “Excellent” (97 percent), 15 “Good” (0.9 percent), 1 “Sufficient” (0.1 percent), 1 “Poor” (0.1 percent), while 35 were not classified as there were no samples available.
There is a certain BWD procedure that needs to be followed each year to determine the bathing water quality. Three calendar requirements need to be met in regards to sample taking: 1) a pre-season sample before the beginning of the bathing season, 2) no fewer than four (or three for special cases) samples are needed during the bathing season and 3) the interval between sample taking should not exceed a month.
In 2024, only two of the 1729 (0.1 percent)waters in Greece were not monitored as required by the BWD.
Also, BWD requires four-year period assessment to find whether changes have been made in particular samples and if samples are taken from new bathing waters.
The breakdown for the 2021-2024 assessment period of the 1729 bathing waters is 1678 continuously monitored, 50 new, and one that was not monitored for one season.
In the last few years, Greece ranks second every year in the number of Blue Flag beaches.
The four countries that stand along Greece at the top five of “Excellent” bathing waters are Cyprus, Bulgaria, Austria and Croatia.
