History of the revision process
- Why revise the Bathing Water Directive?
- 1994 - 2002
- 2003 - 2004
- 2005
- 2006
Why revise the Bathing Water Directive?
The existing Bathing Water Directive (76/160/EEC), introduced in 1976, has been responsible for a considerable increase in bathing water quality at identified bathing sites throughout Europe, therefore achieving its primary aim of protecting public health.
However, the Directive was widely considered to be in need of simplification and updating to take into account lessons learnt from its implementation, developments in science and knowledge about the risks of bathing, and the changes in environmental protection offered by more recent EU water legislation, such as the Urban Wastewater Treatment and Water Framework Directives.
The overall objective of the revised Bathing Water Directive remains the protection of public health whilst bathing. However, it also aims to:
- update the way in which water quality is measured, focusing on fewer microbiological indicators, and setting different standards for inland and coastal bathing sites
- reduce the health risks linked to bathing by setting scientifically based minimum water quality standards
- make changes to monitoring and sampling frequency
- allow a limited number of water samples to be disregarded during short term pollution incidents, if the event is predicted and the public warned beforehand
- provide better information to the public, allowing more informed choices to be made about the risk of bathing
- improve the overall management of bathing water quality by requiring an assessment of potential sources of pollution
- be compatible with other EU water related legislation, in particular the Water Framework Directive
The revision of the Bathing Water Direcitve was carried out under the co-decision procedure, which gives equal weight to the views of the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament in making new legislation. This required the text of the revised Directive to be negotiated and agreed between both Council and Parliament, which each discussed the proposed text and considered suggested amendments of it during a series of readings.
1994 - 2002
The Commission's Proposal
Initial proposals were made for the revision of the 1976 Bathing Water Directive in 1994, but eventually abandoned in 1998 after rejection by the Council of the EU. Scoping for the revision did not begin again until December 2000, when the European Commission issued a Communication (PDF) (on Europa website) outlining the broad principles of the revision and consulting the Council of the EU and the European Parliament.
Defra submitted the Commission's communication to the UK Parliamentary committees responsible for examining and assessing proposed European legislation and also commissioned two studies - one into the costs and one into the benefits of adopting the broad principles set out by the Commission.
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Costing of the Revision to the Bathing Water Directive: Phase 3 Studies - final report (PDF) (265 KB)
A partial Regulatory Impact Assessment (PDF) (74 KB) was also carried out, investigating the balance of the cost and benefits and options for implementation. These documents provided background to the main issues arising from the proposal, informing both the Government's initial consideration of it and the UK's position during negotiations since then.
In March 2001 the Environment Council welcomed the Communication and called for, amongst other things, a cost-benefit assessment and a sound scientific basis for the European Commission's proposal to revise the Directive.
Following consultation with Member States, the Commission published a proposal (PDF) (on Europa website) for the revision of the Bathing Water Directive on 24 October 2002. The proposal is the text used as the basis for negotiation on the revision involving Member States (the Council), the Commission and the European Parliament.
This original Commission proposal included the following:
- an obligation to meet a much tighter bathing water quality standard than the existing Bathing Water Directive
- very limited provisions for recreational waters with no standards for these waters
- some management measures for bathing waters
- improved provision of information at bathing waters
2003 - 2004
First Reading of the European Parliament
The European Parliament's Committee on Environment, Health and Consumer Policy considered the Commission's proposal in October 2003. It recommended a number of amendments to the Commission's proposal, which were sent to the European Parliament to approve or reject in its plenary session of 20 October 2003. The Parliament voted in favour of:
- extending the scope of the Directive to other recreational activities
- a limited management system for bathing waters affected by short-term pollution problems
- closer integration with the Water Framework Directive
- increased public information requirements
The European Parliament's First Reading Opinion (PDF) (on European Parliament website) was then sent to the Commission and to the Environment Council for consideration.
UK Parliamentary Scrutiny
Whilst the European Parliament's first reading was underway, UK Parliamentary scrutiny of the proposal was also completed. The House of Commons held a debate on 4 June 2003. The House of Lords completed their examination of the proposal and produced a report on 18 November 2003.
The Commission's Response
In April 2004 the Commission responded (PDF) (on EU Council website) to the European Parliament's amendments to the revision proposal. Of the 37 amendments adopted at the European Parliament's First Reading in October 2003, the Commission accepted 19 fully and 5 in part, or in principle. Many of these amendments were accepted because they contributed to better public information provision, improved management of bathing waters and also provided a positive contribution to analytical techniques and better public health protection.
First reading of the Council of EU
Negotiations in the Environment Council Working Group in Europe started in January 2003, and Ministers held a public debate on the proposal at the Environment Council in March 2003. The Council gave a qualified welcome to the plans to revise the Directive but were sceptical about the evidence used to justify the tighter bathing water standards and the quality of the Commission's cost / benefit analysis.
There was strong opposition from most Member States to extending the scope of the Directive to include other recreational waters that were not used for bathing. Ministers discussed the proposal at the Environment Council in December 2003 but it was not possible to reach political agreement and progress on the revision stalled.
In January 2004, the incoming Irish Presidency responded to this by calling for Member States to consider a way forward and undertook a series of bilateral discussions to gauge opinion. This resulted in a revised proposal being circulated by the Irish Presidency to Member States in May 2004. The main changes were:
- an additional bathing water classification of 'satisfactory' (now called 'sufficient') alongside 'excellent', 'good' and 'poor'
- an implementation deadline that corresponds with the Water Framework Directive (2015)
- the production of a report reviewing implementation of the Directive in 2020
At an Environment Council meeting in Luxembourg on 28 June 2004, unanimous agreement was reached on the Irish Presidency compromise text. The text set standards of 500 E. Coli and 200 intestinal Enterococci based on a 90-percentile evaluation for coastal waters. The equivalent limits for inland waters were 900 E. Coli and 360 intestinal Enterococci. However, in most other respects the text was the same as the version considered by the Council in December 2003.
Council's Common Position
A formal Common Position (PDF) (on EU Council website) on the Bathing Water Directive was adopted at the Environment Council meeting on 20 December 2004. The adopted text contained minor amendments to that of the June 2004 political agreement, following examination by legal and language experts.
2005
Second reading of the European Parliament
The European Parliament's Environment Committee considered the Common Position during early 2005. The Parliament had several options:
- accepting the Council's Common Position or give no response, in which case the Directive would be adopted as set out in the common position
- rejecting the Common Position by an absolute majority, in which case the revision would be rejected
- making amendments to the Common Position
54 amendments to the Common Position text were eventually proposed to the main body of the Parliament for its second reading vote (PDF) (on EU Council website) on 10 May. The Parliament voted to approve 26 of these, the main themes being:
- tightening of the 'sufficient' standard, and applying a time limit that would cause it to be discontinued after eight years
- more detailed requirements on emergency planning and response
- bringing forward the date of required compliance earlier than 2015
- more detailed requirements on public information and signage
The Parliament rejected proposals to extend the scope of the Directive to include aquatic recreational waters other than bathing waters and proposals to remove the distinction between inland and coastal waters.
Second reading of the Council of the EU
The Council was unable to accept some of the European Parliament’s 26 second reading amendments, particularly those concerning minimum water quality standards and the deadlines for implementation of the revised Directive. The overall package of amendments was therefore rejected by the Council on 6 September 2005.
Conciliation and third reading
This introduced a further, final round of negotiations, known as Conciliation, in which representatives of both the Council and the Parliament met as a single committee to try to resolve the remaining areas of disagreement. The Conciliation Committee met on 12 October 2005, under the UK Presidency, and succeeded in resolving all the remaining differences between the Council and the Parliament over the final text of the revised Bathing Water Directive. A summary of the outcome of this meeting is available in the Council’s press release (PDF) (on EU Council website).
This agreed “joint text” was then passed to the Council and the European Parliament to approve the joint text in separate third reading votes on 22 December 2005 and 17 January 2006, respectively.
2006
Adoption and entry into force
The revised Directive was adopted formally in Strasbourg by representatives of the Council and the European Parliament on 15 February 2006.
The revised Bathing Water Directive (2006/7/EC) (Europa website) was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 4 March 2006 and entered into force 20 days later on 24 March 2006.Further information is available on our Help page about downloading or reading Adobe Acrobat documents.
Page last modified:
19 March 2007
Page published: 31 May 2002