Beach concessions, the European Commission awaits Italy at the gate. In Brussels they are studying guidelines and ongoing debate, waiting to understand how the Meloni government intends to move. The Community executive is well aware of the hypothesis of postponing the reform of the system and the start of a new liberalization of the market, but the definitive choices are awaited. “At the moment there are no decisions and therefore we will not comment” on the basis of simple hypotheses, acknowledges Sonya Gospodinova, the spokesperson responsible for internal market issues of the EU executive, who however recalls that there is “an infringement procedure” open as of December 2020 and still pending. An underline that sounds like a suggestion and a warning: if you don’t proceed with the reform of the competition of the establishments, fines will rain down.
What is certain is that the tug of war between Rome and Brussels continues. It has officially been dragging on since August 2016, when the European Court of Justice ruled that the automatic renewal, without tender, of concessions is contrary to European Union law. Since then, the EU has been waiting for Italy to respect the operative part of the sentence, to which, in the meantime, those of the Council of State have been added. The body of last instance of administrative justice recognized, in November 2021, that national legislation is in conflict with Union law.
Not even this has served to produce changes, so much so that the community executive has not even given discounts to Mario Draghi, a person esteemed and considered reliable. In April last year, the commissioner for the internal market, Thierry Breton, urged the then prime minister to intervene because “the repeated extension of the seaside concessions is no longer sustainable”. Now the thorny issue passes to the Meloni government which will have to act decisively.
Recovery Fund a rischio?
The liberalization of the sector “is not formally included” in the national recovery plan, explains the spokeswoman herself. At first glance, any delays in implementing the expected interventions would not seem to affect the European money in the recovery fund. But in the broader set of commitments for competitiveness, the issue could arise.
In any case, for the moment, the emphasis in Brussels is on the infringement procedure launched in 2020, which calls for equal treatment and transparency in the concession of the use of public coastal property. “We are following the implementation of the commitments” requested at that time.