State of play, main conclusions, outlook

The Commission is carrying out an evaluation of Directive 2006/7/EC on bathing water to assess the achievements and shortcomings of the Directive. In parallel, the Commission is undertaking preliminary work for the future impact assessment, to explore options for improvement and possible future amendments of the Directive.

The implementation of the Bathing Water Directive is supported by a broad range of EU water and marine legislation. A number of new policy frameworks and initiatives are in this sense extremely important and relevant. In order to adequately account for these developments, the Commission is focusing its efforts on finalising the evaluation.