New rules for beaches: stop to the extension regime of beach concessions, strong push on investments and brake on the "expensive beach umbrella" to protect consumers and summer tourism. It is the line adopted by cabinet on the controversial and thorny seaside dossier. Thus the executive has chosen the path of public auctions, in line with the recommendations of Brussels also to avoid the maxi sanction linked to the EU infringement procedure and not to hinder the fundamental competition reform for the resources of the Pnrr (Recovery and resilience plan). The reform of state-owned seaside concessions will be introduced with an amendment to ddl on competition currently under consideration by the Senate. The law also provides for "parachute" measures for small owners of seaside resorts and for those who have mortgages to support for recent investments.
Bathing concessions: what changes
No more unlimited extensions as established by the historic ruling of the State Council of 20 October: the beaches from January 1 2024 must be reassigned by tender. There will no longer be the situation of maintenance of the property that was seen up to now, but all the current holders of the concession as well as groups, individuals or foreign investors will be able to participate in the tender to win the seaside resort.
To try to make this operation as less traumatic as possible, they reward and try to safeguard those who have held and invested in these concessions over the years through a system of final score for the assignment of the seaside resorts which will take into account three aspects: investments made in the past, those planned and thirdly the commercial proposal which has been the subject of speculation for years. But the current managers still remain opposed to the intervention.
La news it concerns the insertion of a precise constraint for all those who will participate in the tenders: the investments must be planned and declared. Therefore, in order to obtain the concession it will be necessary to demonstrate how the service is to be improved, how the investment is to be remunerated but also to protect those who made them by giving them an advantage in the tender. The executive's intention is to protect the "legitimate interests" of the owners of small establishments, but also to push investments so as to to control prices and improve services for consumers.
Concessions and tenders divide the parties
16 years after the approval of the European directive, which imposes calls for tenders to encourage competition, the chapter on state-owned seaside concessions is closed. A debated topic that can no longer be postponed given the constant calls from Europe to our country to incorporate the Bolkestein directive. A factor that collided with another problem: the interest of sector operators. Finding a meeting point between right and duty, protecting the principles of competition on the one hand and those of those who have invested in a strategic sector for the country, with strong repercussions on the GDP, on the other, was not taken for granted but necessary.
And if on the one hand the majority was in agreement on the need for a package of rules to reform the beach system, on the other the parties were divided on the solutions. Alloy e fdi primarily for the preservation of the acquired rights of the concessionaires, but the Carroccio has chosen not to support the motion presented by Giorgia Meloni to exclude bathing establishments (and also street vendors) from the Bolkestein directive and to extend the concessions for another 15 years. The M5s instead he was in favor of public reassignment, while the Pd he remained more neutral, asking to address the delicate issue "without ideological wars" but trying "to shed light on a strategic sector" where instead "confusion and uncertainty" have reigned so far.
