We are back to talking about the "beach issue". And it was done in the context of a strike organized by some trade unions, Sib-Confcommercio and Fiba-Confesercenti in particular, in order to urge the identification of solution hypotheses in the specific sector of reference.
On August 9th, therefore, beach umbrellas were closed, even if only for a few hours, in several Italian Regions. It was defined as a leopard-spot strike, the basic motivation of which would be found in the lack of feedback, by the government, regarding the request for a regulatory intervention on the issue of concessions. No quaestio, but it would probably be necessary to come to an agreement (the conditional seems appropriate) on one aspect, that is, the potential harmonization, if one wants to call it that, of the discipline dictated by the European Union as contained in the Bolkestein Directive with the regulation applied up to now by the Italian legal system in the matter of maritime state concessions for tourism and recreational purposes. Even more so when it is necessary to preliminarily ensure compliance with the obligations deriving from art. 12 of the Bolkestein Directive, since the automatic extension of existing maritime state authorizations for tourist-recreational activities would seem to exclude a priori any selection procedure among potential beneficiaries. This latter circumstance would now appear to equally make it necessary to take a national measure aimed at bringing the current national legislation into line with European Union law, so to speak, since, at present, the risk of incurring an infringement procedure against Italy for not having yet started the tenders envisaged by the Bolkestein Directive does not yet appear to have been averted.
It would be necessary, to put it another way, to ensure the principle of competition that already exists in the broad sector of the services market also in the specific seaside sector.
First of all, because the Directive in question was approved by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union back in 2006. Therefore, because it would be, as it is, a regulation subject to transposition into the legal system of each Member State. Furthermore, because Italy, specifically, took steps in this direction in 2010, in the context of the last government led by President Silvio Berlusconi, assuming, from that moment, the force of law throughout the national territory. Finally, because, the violation of a European Union Directive could lead to the opening of an infringement procedure by the European Commission and, in the event of prolonged non-compliance, a referral to the Court of Justice of the European Union itself for the imposition of a fine. To be clear, the aim of the supranational institutions has always been to ensure the development of the European Single Market of goods and services in a free and fair manner, aiming at this need to prevent the creation of privileged zones (if we wanted to define them as such).
