Does Matteo Salvini remember? In 2019, his career ended on a beach for the time being – just when he thought it was only really going to take off. The head of the right-wing Lega, then interior minister and poll king, announced his departure from Giuseppe Conte’s government on exclusive Papeete Beach in Romagna.
But the new elections that he was counting on did not take place, and it was only two years later that Salvini and his family found shelter again in the Draghi cabinet. Now it’s summer again, Italy’s beach tenants are starting to clean up by the sea. And the government, of which Salvini is number two, has just as much concern as she does: it could be one of the last summers of the quasi-feudal system dividing Italy’s sea.
Beach leaseholders are the core clientele of the right
The concessions for the beach tenants have been passed on for generations without a tender. From father to daughter, a kind of family property that only formally belongs to the Italian state. In the opinion of critical voices, he only demands ridiculous lease payments to the detriment of his own finances.
This has been a nuisance for Brussels for a long time, and two infringement procedures are being carried out against Rome for this reason. The so-called Bolkestein Directive, named after the Dutch Commissioner for Competition at the time, Frits Bolkestein, has stipulated since 2006 that national markets must also be open to services. What would mean for Italy’s beach leaseholders: the lease would be advertised and possibly booted out by other providers.
The Services Directive has not been implemented on Italy’s beaches for almost two decades, by any government. But the now incumbent has to be particularly afraid of burning her fingers. For all three coalition parties, Melonis FdI, Salvinis Lega and Berlusconis Forza Italia, the lords of the bathing beaches are among their core clientele.
President of the Constitutional Court warns government
But things are getting tight for them: Last week, the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg again ruled against the Italian practice, and even in Rome the voices of concern are increasing: The President of Italy’s Constitutional Court, Silvana Sciarra, recently made it clear that things could not go on like this .
Otherwise, every citizen has reason to go to court against individual awards if they see themselves disadvantaged by the lax award of a concession. President Sergio Mattarella had already warned in February when the government waved through the extension of the lease for another year.
If you deduct the leased beaches, the apartments by the sea, hotels and holiday villages with their private beaches, industrial areas, ports, military restricted areas and the heavily polluted stretches of sea, plus the nature reserves and the inaccessible stretches of coast, then the abundance of free space is reduced significantly.
Marco Bascettacommentator in “il manifesto”
Meanwhile, it seems to be at work trying to save the well-established system. One of the arguments put forward by “Assobalneari”, one of the beach industry’s interest groups: the “balneari” are not services, but public goods that are leased – and are therefore not affected at all by the EU directive.
Another way would be to publicly advertise the management of the previously free beaches in Italy, i.e. to allow competition on a part of the coast without upsetting the families of the long-term beach tenants. With the effect that bathing would finally become a privilege for the better off. South of Rome, for example, a parasol cost around 200 euros a week last summer.
Number of concessions has grown rapidly
In view of the eight thousand kilometers of coastline, the government countered, there could be no question of a shortage. Or is it? “If you factor out the leased beaches, the apartments by the sea, hotels and holiday villages with their private beaches, industrial sites, ports, military restricted areas and the heavily polluted stretches of sea, plus the nature reserves and the inaccessible stretches of coast, then the abundance of free space is significantly reduced,” recently commented on the left daily newspaper “il manifesto”.
And it is becoming less and less, like Italy’s environmental association Legambiente in this year’s report calculates the situation on the Italian coasts: In three years, beach concessions alone have grown by 12.5 percent. In 2018 there were 10,812, now there are more than 12,000.
Liguria and Emilia-Romagna therefore hold the European record for private occupation of the waterline; there 70 percent and more, in some communities even all beaches are leased.
The environmentalists also point out that almost half of Italy’s sandy coast is crumbling, a tripling since 1970. And more than seven percent of the sandy beaches are banned from swimming because of heavy water pollution.
