Italy has been called to order by the European Commission regarding its seaside resort concepts, therefore for a failure to comply with the Bolkestein Directive.
But let's take a step back. What is the Bolkestein Directive?
It takes its name from the former Commissioner for Competition and the Internal Market, Frits Bolkenstein, and was implemented by the Italian government in 2010. The directive aims to ensure compliance with the free movement of services and the removal of barriers between countries. This allows any citizen of the European Union to propose their own activity within it. Bolkenstein's intention was to simplify the administrative and bureaucratic procedures for temporarily exercising an activity within an EU country.
The temporary nature of the directive is highlighted since the free movement of services concerns those who move from one country to another to provide a service for a limited time.
What position has Italy taken?
For several years the EU has requested that Italy put the management of beach resorts out to tender in the name of free competition rules. The EU believes that authorizations for goods, limited due to the scarcity of natural resources, in this specific case beaches, must be issued for a limited time and through a selection procedure that is open and public.
However, Italy has continued to proceed with the automatic renewal of beach concessions. In 2016, the Court of Justice of the EU had established that the practice of automatically extending authorizations was not compatible with its rules, but the various Italian governments that have followed since then have continued with the automatic renewal extensions, the last one was decided by the Meloni Government and will be valid until December 31, 2024.
Faced with Italy's decision to continue on its path without paying attention to what the EU was requesting, the European Commission had already started the infringement procedure against Italy in 2020 by sending a letter of formal notice.
Last October, the Italian government had drawn up, thanks to the work of a specially established technical table, the mapping of Italian beaches. From what emerged, the areas of the maritime state property occupied by the bathing establishments are equivalent to 33% of the available areas.
Therefore, this would demonstrate that the beach resource is not “scarce” and therefore the current government together with the beach associations have agreed that the obligation to put out to tender which is foreseen by EU regulations should not be applied.
What are the latest developments?
On November 16, the European Commission sent a reasoned opinion to Italy, which contested the work done by the technical table, declaring that the calculation was made considering not only the available beach areas but the entire state-owned area, therefore also ports, industrial areas, marine protected areas, natural parks and rocky coastal areas. Furthermore, it highlights how the specific situations of the regions and individual municipalities were not taken into consideration. Therefore, an infringement procedure was started against the country.
What will happen now?
The Italian government has sixty days to respond and adopt the necessary provisions to comply with the EU's demands.
However, from what has emerged so far from the statements of the majority exponents, the government is determined to go ahead on its own path following the strategy of non-scarcity of the resource and foreseeing tenders only for the beaches not yet subject to concession.
