Bulgaria ranks third in EU’s annual bathing waters survey
Bulgaria dropped one spot in the European Environment Agency (EEA) annual report on the quality of bathing waters in the EU, ranking third in the ratio of bathing water sites meeting EEA’s “excellent quality” standards.
The latest report, based on samples taken throughout 2025 and released on June 16, put the number of “excellent quality” sites in Bulgaria at 93, one fewer than last year’s record high, or 96.9 per cent of the country’s total of 96 bathing sites included in the survey.
Of the remainder, two sites were rated as “good quality” and one as “sufficient quality.” It was the seventh year running that Bulgaria did not have a single “poor quality” site.
Bulgaria’s proportion of “excellent quality” sites remains well above the EU average. Overall, 84.8 per cent of the 22 010 EU bathing sites covered by the EEA report met “excellent quality” standards, down from 85.4 per cent last year.
A further 11 per cent of the EU bathing waters scored as good or sufficient quality, while 1.5 per cent scored poorly and 2.8 per cent could not be properly assessed due to insufficient data.
“This summer we can all reap the benefits of solid implementation of EU bathing water rules, which have made a vast majority of our bathing waters clean enough to swim in,” EEA executive director Leena Ylä-Mononen said in a statement.
“This is proof of how European coordination brings real value to all of us in improving our environment and health and goes a long way also to boost our water resilience in the face of climate change,” she said.
Every year, the EEA compiles bathing water data gathered by local authorities across the 27 European Union member states, Switzerland and Albania – measuring levels of bacteria from sewage and livestock. More than two thirds of sites are coastal beaches, with rivers and lakes making up the remainder.
An interactive map of all bathing sites covered by the report can be seen here.
(Photo: Clive Leviev-Sawyer)
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