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5.3.       Transboundary cooperation

Water bodies – particularly seas and oceans – are often transboundary in their nature. This means that pressures such as pollution can be spread to the whole water body or neighbouring water bodies. This includes spreading from freshwater streams to lakes and vice versa, and from freshwaters to marine water bodies. As a result, the transboundary management principle has been embedded to the EU directives (Box 16), as well as to the international conventions that have been brought in to provide a framework for international standards on pollution, monitoring and assessment, conservation and protection; and cooperation in implementing such standards. For example, the OSPAR Convention (1992) sets the framework for the North-East Atlantic and Barcelona Convention (last amended in 1995) for the Mediterranean. Freshwater resources are subject of transboundary agreements such as the Danube River Protection Convention (1994), the largest body or river basin management expertise in Europe (ICPDR, 2019). With the main objectives of the latter including ensuring sustainable water management, the Convention offers the political framework for implementing transboundary projects that affect water quality and therefore bathing.