European Environment Agency

The overwhelming majority of Greece's bathing waters met European Union water quality standards in 2017, according to the European Environment Agency.

In its annual report, the agency said that 95.9 percent of all existing coastal bathing waters are of excellent quality, behind Luxembourg (100 percent), Malta (98.9 percent) and Cyprus (97.3 percent).

In Bulgaria 78% of people are exposed to dirty air, while their average share in the EU is 19%. This is what the data showed from the last annual report on the air conditions in Bulgaria of the Executive Environmental Agency (EEA) and from European comparisons of this indicator made by the European Environment Agency to the European Commission, quoted by "Dnevnik" .

The total reported economic losses caused by weather- and climate-related extremes in the 33 EEA member countries between 1980 and 2016 amounted to more than €450bn, according to a recent study released by the European Environment Agency.

428,000 Europeans from 41 countries have prematurely died of diseases caused by fine particle in the air in 2014, the European Environment Agency said yesterday.

The sea water on all beaches in Varna is clean, the latest analysis of the Regional Health Inspection in the city shows. Samples had been taken from 23 bathing areas in Varna region. The water quality is within the required standards at the "Officer's Beach", for which there was a temporary swimming ban last year.

Greece ranked third in an annual study carried out by the European Environment Agency when it comes to the cleanliness of its waters.

As part of the European Bathing Water Quality study in 2016, 1,542 locations were tested across Greece - two were lakes - and 97 percent of them had excellent water quality.

More than 18 100 die as a result of conditions caused by air pollution, public broadcaster BNR has said, citing statistics of The Lancet, a British medical journal.

Plovdiv, Pleven, Pazardzhik, Sofia and Pernik are the five cities most affected, according to the figures.

The south and southeaster regions of Europe, including Bulgaria, will be affected most by the unfavourable effects of climate change on the continent.

The forecast is for heat waves and droughts to occur mostly in these particular regions.

In its annual report on air quality in Europe on Wednesday, the Copenhagen-based European Environment Agency (EEA) attributed the premature deaths of hundreds of thousands of Europeans to coal and biomass burning industries, power plants and household.

Sofia is the most polluted capital in Europe, showed data of the European Environment Agency.

On Friday, an operation was launched for measuring harmful emissions from exhaust gases of vehicles. Units of the Road Police and Executive Agency Automobile Administration will take part in the operation. It was organised by the Association Diabetes Type 2 and Climate Coalition - Bulgaria.