An EU report based on information provided by Malta has found that 95.4% of the coastal bathing waters in Malta met the mandatory values required by the EU last year.

“This is a good result, but a small decrease compared to the previous season,” the report says.

The report adds that 89.7% of the bathing waters met the more stringent guide values, an improvement over the previous season.

Four bathing waters were not compliant with the mandatory values in 2007 (4.6%). As in 2006, there were no bathing waters where bathing was prohibited throughout the 2007 season.

“At the beginning of the monitoring in 2005 the number of coastal bathing waters that complied with the mandatory and guide values was rather low. This was due to the high number of insufficiently sampled bathing waters. This problem was solved from 2006 onwards,” the report says.

The EU said the generally, bathing water quality in the EU remains high.

“Some 95% of coastal bathing areas and 89% of bathing sites in rivers and lakes comply with the mandatory standards.”

In 2007 a total of 21,368 bathing areas were monitored, a slight increase from the previous year.