The tug-of-war continues bathing concessions between Italian e Brussels. The European Commission has decided to take a step forward in the infringement procedure launched in 2020, sending a reasoned opinion to Rome for failure to comply with the directive Bolkestein. For years Europe has been asking Italy to get back into the market and guarantee free competition with transparent and impartial assignment tenders; yet, Rome has never adapted, on the contrary it has always tried to take its time. Now, however, we can no longer hide our heads in the sand. After the infringement letter on the beach concessions, What happen to our country? From procedures, we have two months to convince Brussels not to proceed further otherwise we risk reaching the limit Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), and in case of conviction, pay a maximum fine.
Italy's pirouettes on beach concessions
Let's take a step back. In December 2006 the European Parliament approved the Bolkenstein directive on the free movement of services. The regulation - implemented by our country only in 2010 - also applies to beach concessions, for which there is an "impartial and transparent public selection procedure to prevent their automatic renewal. But governments have always postponed the application so the licenses for the occupation of Italian maritime state property have been passed down from one generation to the next.
The first Conte government he even went so far as to extend the concessions until 31 December 2033, after Rome (in 2016) had already been condemned by the EU Court of Justice for failure to comply with the European directive. This led to the opening of a new infringement procedure against the Belpaese in 2020. To try to put a plaster on an immense wound, in 2021 the Council of State had set 31 December 2023 as the deadline for tendering maritime state concessions. Deadline also set by Draghi government but with a loophole: in the event of pending litigation or difficulties in completing the tender, the deadline could be postponed to 31 December 2024. Obviously the Meloni government has once again postponed the deadline, to the end of December 2024 for everyone, with the latest Milleproroghe decree, despite the new ruling of illegitimacy expressed by last April by the EU Court of Justice towards the Taranto municipality of Ginosa Marina. The measure also ended up in the sights of the Quirinale: last February 24th the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella he promulgated it expressing many reservations. “It is clear that the profiles of incompatibility with European law and with definitive jurisdictional decisions increase the uncertainty of the regulatory framework and make further government and Parliament initiatives indispensable in the short term,” he underlined.
Infringement procedure on beach concessions: what happens now?
Once the law was made, the deception was found. The government's goal is to try to bypass the Bolkenstein demonstrating that there is no "scarcity" of the good to be assigned. In fact, theArticle 12 of the directive clarifies that, where "the number of concessions is limited due to the scarcity of natural resources, the release must take place through tender, for a limited duration, without automatic renewal and without an advantage for the previous concessionaire". Therefore, if the resources in question are not scarce, the reference regulation becomes that of article 11, which provides for an unlimited duration of concessions.
Rome, meanwhile, has mapped Italian beaches. And it emerged that "approximately 33% of the state-owned areas of the coasts, a third of the total, are under concession, while 67% are free". There free beach it is not a scarce resource, therefore the problem of concessions would not exist. The line that the centre-right government would like to adopt would open up calls for tenders but only for free beaches, without affecting those currently occupied. A path that the Commission does not seem to appreciate.
In letter di Brussels, in fact, reference is made precisely to the study of the technical table, and explains that the scarcity of the resource must not only be calculated on a national scale, but also on a local basis, given that it is the Municipalities that issue the concessions. In fact, if you look at a municipal level, there are seaside resorts where the percentage of establishments assigned exceeds 90% of the beaches present.
What will the government do? After the taxi drivers, he will continue to pamper the sea lobby making us pay a huge fine again?
The beach resort lobby: negligible rents and evaded taxes
While waiting, managers continue to pay ridiculous prices for annual rental payments to the State with a turnover worth billions of euros. And in addition to being low, the fees are often unpaid. For example, an establishment like the Twiga, one of the most exclusive venues in Forte dei Marmi, as admitted by Flavio Briatore who was then a partner together with Minister Santanchè, paid only a few thousand euros against a turnover of 2022 million euros in 10.
The issue of compliance with the directive is therefore much more than a mere problem of the prevalence of European rules over national ones, but a necessity to reopen a stagnant market, prey to favoritism, which takes away a significant loss of revenue from the State and therefore from citizens.