Beach warfare

 Italy’s beach warfare pits Meloni’s party against bathers

By Giovanna Faggionato

Dozens of bathers singing songs on some of Italy's chicest beaches have run up against Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy party.

The would-be swimmers are activists for the Mare Libero — or Free Sea — group that has swarmed beaches such as Naples' wealthy villa-dotted Posilippo area or Forte dei Marmi, a jet-set favorite that's home to fashion designer Giorgio Armani and Belgium's former Queen Paola.

They're targeting beaches that should be free to all after the European Commission repeatedly ordered Italy to end lucrative rights given to restaurants, beach clubs and beach bars to control access to the shoreline.

But the beach concession-holders are furious — and they've gotten the backing of Italy's ruling party.

Carlo Fidanza, the head of the Brothers of Italy delegation to the European Parliament, labeled the group "troublemakers,” the beach operators' lobby said on its website. The business owners are calling on the infrastructure ministry to urgently end any potential beach-squatting. 

For Meloni, the beaches are a political headache she inherited from her predecessor Mario Draghi, who decided three years ago that local authorities had to put beach concessions out to tender by the end of 2023 and could only keep concessions running if they’d already started the bidding process.

Delay tactics

Meloni's government has tried to delay compliance for another year, but she’s been stymied by court rulings. The Commission has also warned Italy of legal action.

Fidanza told POLITICO that the government is arguing that it doesn't have to comply immediately to open up beaches since they are not scarce, one of the conditions for the EU services law to apply.

"We want to continue the dialog with the Commission to arrive at a shared legislation that can take into account this specificity of our tourism,” he said just days before being re-elected to the European Parliament in a big win for Meloni’s party.

Others are losing patience with these delay tactics which come after years of political inaction. Green and leftist politicians during their European Parliament campaign called for tougher restrictions on granting beach concessions, including a 12-year limit.

Mare Libero continues to wage a slow battle, beach by beach. | Vincenzo Pinto/AFP via Getty Images

The Commission doesn't buy Fidanza's argument, saying in a letter last year that it doesn't see any proof that there's "no scarcity of natural resources on the whole Italian territory that are the subject of ‘bathing concessions.'"

Antonio Capacchione, a lawyer who also chairs one of the main beach concession-holders' lobby, is frustrated that “the issue has not yet been solved” by the government. There's now even a new political push to compensate beach concession holders.

Fighting them on the beaches

Mare Libero continues to wage a slow battle, beach by beach.

The would-be swimmers are targeting beaches where such concessions have expired, including one where current and past shareholders include Tourism Minister Daniela Santanché and motorsports mogul Flavio Briatore.

They even went to the Ostia beach near Rome, where organized crime once controlled concessions and where current beach businesses have been attacked.

Roberto Biagini, Mare Libero's founder of Mare Libero or "the leader of troublemakers" as he joked on the phone, explained that his campaigners are working with the country's competition authority to notify beaches that haven't met the deadline to open up concessions to tender.

“They immediately gave us feedback, registered the documents, and informed of what municipalities gave the authority satisfactory answers, for instance, that they were starting the procedures, and updated us on the developments," he said.

The Italian competition authority announced this month that they will appeal against the extension of concession in five municipalities. It doubled down last week and this week by saying it will file appeals against several others.

"Since the beginning of the year, no one can say anything if every Italian citizen lays a towel and plants an umbrella on a beach,” Biagini said.

Mare Libero plans to keep going with its beach flash mobs with Biagini remaining playful even as the political rhetoric hots up.

"It is not a provocation, we went there to bathe," Biagini said.