EU report finds 93 percent of Greek beaches have excellent bathing waters

A European Commission report on the quality of bathing waters in the bloc in 2013 published on Tuesday showed that 93 percent of Greek beaches have excellent water quality, ranking the Mediterranean destination fifth behind Cyprus and Luxembourg (100 percent), Malta (99 percent excellent) and Croatia (95 percent).

Overall in 2013, EU member states reported 15,363 coastal bathing sites. More than 70 percent were located in Italy (32 percent), in Greece (14 percent), in France (13 percent) and Spain (14 percent).

In Greece, the Commission report located 2,162 bathing sites, of which 2,016 had excellent quality of water and five of which did not meet standards.

The minimum quality standards were achieved by 96.8 percent of all coastal waters in the EU, representing an increase of 1.2 percentage points compared to 2012.