Beach concessions, the EU “Italy respects competition rules and modernizes the sector”

BRUSSELS. “These latest developments are quite worrying.” Sonya Gospodinova, spokeswoman for the European Commission for internal market issues, expresses her disappointment at the extension of beach concessions. In this matter, the Meloni government has made its choices, now the community executive will make its own decisions and act accordingly. The extension of the authorizations for the use and management of state-owned coasts contained in the Milleproroghe decree goes in the direction of an open confrontation with Brussels. Inevitable, however. In 2016, the European Court of Justice ruled that the automatic renewal, without tender, of concessions is contrary to European Union law. In December 2020 the start of the infringement procedure, a necessary act for the Community executive, responsible for the application of the common rules and compliance with the Court’s rulings. “We have not yet been notified of the provision, but we know that the President of the Republic has signed it with observations regarding the profile of incompatibility with EU law”, continues Gospodinova. In this tug of war, the EU stands with Sergio Mattarella and unloads Giorgia Meloni and his team.

To the Fdi-Lega-Fi government, says another spokeswoman for the EU Commission, “we take the opportunity to reiterate that EU law requires national rules to ensure equal treatment of service providers without any direct or indirect advantage for any specific operator, promote innovation and fair competition, provide for a fair return on investments made and protect against the risk of monopolization of public resources to the advantage of consumers and businesses”. Conditions not respected with the automatic confirmation of the system already in place and subject to disputes. The moves have not gone unnoticed. On the contrary, “the Commission has closely followed the developments in Italy of the regulatory system on beach concessions”, continues the spokeswoman, who does not imply anything good.

Because if today Brussels speaks through its communication service, in unsuspecting times it was the college that clearly put pressure for changes in the sector. The repeated extension of the concessions “seriously compromises legal certainty and is no longer sustainable, especially in such an important sector for the Italian economy”. This is the call of Thierry Breton, commissioner for the internal market, put down in black and white in an answer to a parliamentary question on the subject dated April 2022. Here, on behalf of the entire college of commissioners, Breton underlines how it is «of utmost importance that Italy proceed as soon as possible with an adequate reform of its own regulations” on the matter,

The Draghi government, in July last year, had passed a competition law considered “an important first step” to resolve the distortions of the country’s system in the seaside tourism sector. A project stranded on Italian beaches and their management system. Which now threatens to cost dearly. Because the sentences of the Council of State have meanwhile been added to the sentence of the EU Court of Justice in 2016 and to the infringement procedure of December 2020. The body of last instance of administrative justice recognized, in November 2021, that national legislation is in conflict with Union law.

The government that flaunts the defense of the Italians risks unloading on them the fines that the Commission has the power to impose on the country for continuing with practices that are known to be illegal even in Italy. One of the parameters for calculating the fines is also the duration of the situation contrary to the law. The longer you stay non-compliant, the more you pay. Brussels sends another warning.