Luxembourg has pushed Malta off the top of the ladder for its bathing water quality but 98.9% of the country’s bathing sites were certified as having excellent water quality. In last year’s report Malta had scored 100%, at level with Cyprus.

In the case of Malta, samples were taken from 87 coastal locations. In 86 of the sites Malta was found to have excellent or good quality water.

The data published by the European Commission, shows that 95 per cent or more bathing waters were assessed as being of ‘excellent’ quality in five countries, namely Luxembourg, Malta, Cyprus (97.3%), Greece (95.9%) and Austria (95.1%).

All reported bathing water sites in Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, Romania, Slovenia and Switzerland achieved at least sufficient quality in accordance with the minimum quality standards set by the Bathing Water Directive.

The three countries with the highest numbers of bathing water sites of 'poor' water quality were Italy (79 bathing water sites or 1.4%), France (80 sites or 2.4%) and Spain (38 sites or 1.7%).

In the EU states, the highest proportion of bathing waters classified as 'poor' was recorded in Estonia (7.4%), Ireland (4.9%) and the United Kingdom (3.3%).