Report that debunks propaganda: Albania ranks last in Europe for bathing water quality

From the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, most bathing waters in Europe are of excellent quality for swimming when assessed against the parameters required by the Bathing Water Directive (BWD).

The quality of bathing water in Europe has improved significantly in recent decades. This is due to a drastic reduction in organic pollutants and pathogens previously released in untreated or partially treated urban wastewater.

BWD has recently conducted an inspection, report, which focuses on the monitoring of Escherichia coli and intestinal enterococci, important indicators of fecal contamination, which poses a risk to human health due to the possible presence of pathogens.

Of the 22,127 bathing waters reported in Europe in 2024, 85% were of excellent quality. In five countries - Cyprus, followed by Bulgaria, Greece, Austria and Croatia - 95% or more of bathing waters were of excellent quality.

In Bulgaria, followed by Malta, Luxembourg, Romania and Slovenia, all bathing waters were of at least 'sufficient' quality in 2024.

On the other hand, less than 70% of bathing waters were of excellent quality in five countries, namely, in descending order, Belgium, Hungary, Estonia, Poland and Albania (Figure 2).

The report that debunks the propaganda

So, Albania ranks last in terms of bathing water quality. Beyond the propaganda that the government serves to Albanians, the BWD report shows the opposite of what the authorities trumpet.

Albania, blessed with many picturesque places and diverse nature, faces discriminatory policies that have only one goal: to bring in as many tourists as possible by confronting them with an unfair ratio, in terms of extremely high conditions and prices.

And yet, tourists were served with poor quality bathing waters, although publicly, Rama and his minister Kumbaro take care to hide it by only demonstrating the 'successes' of cleaning the beaches from occupation with private sun loungers.

Authorities hide the map

Every country has an obligation to show the quality of bathing waters on a map for public transparency. If we take the example of Greece, when we click on the link placed on the map, the official website of the respected institution for environmental protection opens.

The opposite happens with Albania. If you click on the link placed on the map, the page does not exist. The National Environmental Agency has not placed any information on the quality of bathing waters in our country. It seems that the agency has chosen to hide Albania's ranking in last place in terms of bathing water quality.