Beach concessions: yet another stop to Italy amid broken promises and credibility

These are provisions that produce direct effects, which is why, inevitably, national judges and administrative authorities, including municipal ones, are required to apply them, as well as are also required, and simultaneously, to disapply the rules of national law that do not comply to the same. All the more so when "no element capable of invalidating the validity of the European directive" has emerged, and, even more so, when, in approving it, in 2006, the EU Council has "correctly resolved by qualified majority".

So what's the point of trying to force the hand on issues in which the margin of autonomy of the Italian Government is practically equal to zero? What is the point of insisting on consolidated juridical circumstances just to try to maintain approval on the electoral level, if then the consequence risks appearing, as it probably appears, even more disappointing than the actual reality? Why undertake initiatives that then force a sensational step backwards with all consequences in terms of public image and credibility? And then, why always risk the infringement procedure by offering the idea of an Italy refractory to the EU decisum?

The European Commission has already received a precise and not otherwise negligible warning that cannot be contested by the Italian government, on which the possibility of activating the infringement procedure fluctuates, which, moreover, would result in a certain and not otherwise avoidable sentence of a heavy millionaire fine which, paradoxically, in its entirety, it will have to be paid for by all taxpayers due, probably, to the obstinacy and inconclusiveness of national policy.

Giorgia Meloni, fortunately, in the meeting held with Commissioner Thierry Breton, wanted to offer reassurance on the point, firmly arguing, and we will even say necessarily in order to avoid further misunderstandings seriously compromising good relations with the highest European institutions, that the national authorities all, at any level in Italy will apply European legislation very quickly, and that the national authorities will proceed to align Italian national legislation with European standards: as if it were necessary to have to reiterate it further. If he had acted from the outset in the name of compliance with the legislation in force, surely the incomprehension, to define it in this way, would not have had any reason to exist. But so much has happened. It goes without saying that, in any event, the European institutions, just so as not to leave anything to chance, will take care to carry out direct and very rigorous monitoring of the situation: in short, special supervised persons, so to speak, without the possibility of further appeal and without no possibility of reply. In order to avoid further damage to operators in the sector, a survey of the real state of the availability of coasts to be allocated to bathing activities is quickly required, admitted and not granted that it is possible to offer congruous and justified justification and motivation with specific reference to the non-exiguousness of the asset and, therefore, in some way, avoid the obligation of public tenders. It is always admitted and not granted that it is possible to circumvent, and really cannot be, the further and probably more burdensome obligation contained in the sentence of the Court of Justice of the European Union: namely that of the prohibition to automatically renew any existing authorization , and therefore, the absolute prohibition and not otherwise avoidable, to any kind or type of extension by a certain holder for the sole fact of its "persistence" on the territory and of the service constantly offered to users over the years.

Consequently, if the Court of Justice establishes, as in fact it has established, indiscriminately, the prohibition of extension, it also follows the need that, with reference to expired concessions, these must necessarily be reassigned by means of a public auction, also regardless or not of the scarcity of available goods. Smallness that, if you look closely, is found almost to the so-called "leopard spot", since in some seaside resorts by now there does not seem to exist practically a hole of public beach freely accessible by people. Perhaps, in addition to the issue of assigning concessions, it would be better to redefine once and for all the rules relating to the overcrowding of bathing establishments on public property, establishing an adequate percentage of useful spaces freely accessible and usable by people.

In all this chaos of legislation, the age-old affair of the beach concessions is still very far from being resolved. Electoral promises that are difficult to achieve, in the long run, and the test of time, does not pay. But this is a lesson that all politics is struggling to learn.

Josephine Di Salvatore

(Lawyer – Nuoro)