"The possession of a Blue Flag has become a matter of prestige for coastal resorts, "he said.
Any beach with a blue flag has to display its water quality results, on easy-to-read signs.
The scheme is similar to the Green and Blue Flag projects for parks, green spaces and beaches.
The Blue Flag programme is a worldwide initiative run by independent non-profit group the Foundation for Environmental Education.
The 2013 blue flag beaches were revealed at an event hosted by Keep Wales Tidy in Rest Bay, Porthcawl.
An inquiry into a sewage spill which closed Blue Flag beaches in Thanet earlier this year has opened in Kent.
Alan Woods, chief executive of the Blue Flag scheme, urged all beaches to enter the scheme or risk getting left behind.
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Many mourners at Sunday's funeral waved the light blue flag of the Sunni-based opposition Future Party, while others carried Lebanon's national flag.
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On a fine day, take breakfast on the secluded terrace then make the short drive to Cardigan Bay, with its miles of unspoilt coastline and Blue Flag beaches.
Sandra Hall, assistant manager of the Beach Motel in Treaddur Bay, near Holyhead, Anglesey, said the bay's blue flag status was vital to the local economy.
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However, Chris Jackson, chairman of the North Wales Tourism Partnership, said he did not believe the blue flag award was as relevant as it used to be.
"I have no time for the Europe of the blue flag and the little stars, some elevated ideal, " said Mr Rutte, speaking to Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad.
West Bay at Westgate was named for the second year in a row, while Margate Main Sands regained the Blue Flag that it last held in 2004.
BBC: The Blue Flag awards highlight the best and safest beaches
We saw some even clamber on to an armoured personnel carrier and dance with the troops and another soldier laughing and wrapping himself in the blue flag of Suez.
Early in the day Pope Francis glided through the square in an open-top vehicle amid a sea of colored banners, including the white and sky-blue flag of his home country of Argentina.
It is the tenth successive year that the council has been awarded a Blue Flag for the west strand in Portrush and the sixth time that the town's east strand has received the accolade.
Built in the 1970s, the harbour has been given Blue Flag status by the Foundation for Environmental Education in recognition of both its effort to protect the local environment and its high standard of safety and service facilities.
Visitors on the cruise ships that dock here are greeted by scarlet-red pillar-boxes, and even a roof bearing the red, white and blue union flag.
In what city officials said was a first, the bright-blue Boston city flag flew at half-staff at City Hall, on the orders of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who grew up in the Boston suburb of Medford.
He wore a charcoal gray suit, blue tie, and American flag lapel pin.
On its website Mariano Recalde, its boss a former labour lawyer whose father is a pro-government congressman vaunts its change of livery, which now features the national flag's sky blue.
Behind her a thin man in a blue linen suit started to wave a Palestinian flag.
In her collection of performance outfits and village wear produced with Adidas, McCartney did away with the traditional colors of the British flag and rendering it mostly in blue.
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It was the teams from North and South Korea marching together at the opening ceremony under one flag which pictures a blue united Korean peninsula on a white background that stole the show.
In Columbus, Ohio, participants were to hold red, white and blue cards to make a big U.S. flag.
Vivienne Westwood did it last year and used a Union Jack motif so the red, white and blue is like a section taken through the middle of the flag.
The Uighur flag, a white star and crescent moon on a blue field, emulates secular Turkey's rather than Iran's or Saudi Arabia's.
As audience members found their seats, the stage production motifs were strong but not overindulgent blue and red blocks of light on the runway to evoke the South Korean flag, alabaster program notes and flecks of traditional folk music.
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The flag she had made for her limousine featured a pair of voluminous calico knickers on a blue satin ground, because her maiden name was Bloomer.
The specter of the president of a major national university running in abject fear, and forming a blue ribbon committee that one suspects has as its mission to pre-emptively run up the white flag to the OCR investigators, is indeed very disturbing and does not augur well for the vibrancy and independence of higher education.
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