Legal aspects of sea water quality: Turkish and EU directives

This paper primarily addresses underlying laws and regulations related to protection of the coastal environment and examines their implementation. In this context, Directive 76/160/EEC which is the leading directive on the quality of bathing water and its revision, i.e. Commission Proposal COM (2000) 860 Final, is investigated particularly and criticized on technical and scientific manner; and similar and dissimilar issues between the Community Directives and Turkish Laws are evaluated. The conducted study reveals that although the Turkish legislation in the field of water quality is largely in line with the acquis, further efforts are also needed with respect to implementation in order to achieve full harmonization.