![Italy's beach club operators are angry at EU plans to put their long-standing, highly lucrative concessions up for auction](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2024/08/03/TELEMMGLPICT000388284607_17226862580110_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqRo0U4xU-30oDveS4pXV-Vv4Xpit_DMGvdp2n7FDd82k.jpeg?imwidth=680)
Italy’s sunbed cartel to go on strike over EU rules
Sunbed operators threaten summer of discontent against EU plans to open the sector to fair competition
![Italy's beach club operators are angry at EU plans to put their long-standing, highly lucrative concessions up for auction](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2024/08/03/TELEMMGLPICT000388284607_17226862580110_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqRo0U4xU-30oDveS4pXV-Vv4Xpit_DMGvdp2n7FDd82k.jpeg?imwidth=680)
It is a hallowed ritual of the Italian summer - families troop off to the coast to rent loungers and umbrellas for long, lazy days at the beach.
But the time-honoured tradition is under threat as the country’s 30,000 beach club owners prepare to revolt over proposals to put their long-standing, highly lucrative beach concessions up for auction as part of a Brussels-backed drive to make the sector fairer and more competitive.
They say the plan threatens their businesses and the livelihoods of their 300,000 employees, claiming it will unleash “chaos” along Italy’s coasts.
They will symbolically close their parasols for two hours on Thursday in protest against the attempts to open up the sector.
They say that if Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister, and her coalition government do not heed their plea, there will be further protests in August, each one lasting a few hours longer.
Serried ranks of loungers and umbrellas
The beach club operators argue that they built up their businesses - “stabilimenti” in Italian - over decades, investing their hard-earned cash in the serried ranks of loungers and umbrellas, spaced just a few inches apart, that Italians love so much.
Some are little more than huts renting out loungers while others are glitzy clubs complete with showers, restaurants and swimming pools.
Critics say the sector is a stitch-up in which operators were granted concessions for a pittance and now make a fortune from renting out sunbeds and umbrellas during the summer season.
Many Italian beaches are now almost entirely taken over by stabilimenti with just a small patch of sand reserved as a “free beach” for those who baulk at paying €50 or more to hire two loungers and a parasol for the day.
The few sections of free beach – often at the edges of the main stretch of sand – are a last, shrinking refuge for people of modest means or those who dislike the regimented nature of the beach clubs.
![Many Italian beaches are now almost entirely taken over by the beach clubs](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2024/08/03/TELEMMGLPICT000388284639_17226881007930_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqRo0U4xU-30oDveS4pXV-Vv4Xpit_DMGvdp2n7FDd82k.jpeg?imwidth=350)
“For years, Italians have had to pay a small fortune for umbrellas and sunbeds. They often encounter gates that deny access to the beaches,” said Riccardo Magi, an MP with the +Europa (More Europe) party.
Italian holidaymakers are “hostage to those who want to benefit forever from concessions that have now expired and which should be put up for auction,” he said.
When a small group of politicians from the Left-wing Radicals Party held a protest at a beach near Rome recently, entering a beach club but refusing to pay for the privilege of sitting on the sand, they were met with a furious response. Staff from the club verbally abused them and were physically threatening.
‘Treated as private property’
“It’s not right that beaches, which should be accessible to everybody, are treated as though they were private property by the operators,” Matteo Hallissey, the head of the Radicals, told The Telegraph.
“The situation has been like this for 80 years,” he added. “Other countries in the EU make sure that these concessions are put up for auction in a transparent and open way. But not Italy.
“We’re the only country that has not put them out to tender. Instead, successive governments have extended the concessions year after year.”
Many beach clubs pay as little as €8,000 (£6,800) a year for the lease on the sand they occupy “and yet they make millions in revenue,” said Mr Hallissey, who has a British father and an Italian mother.
Free and fair bidding process
Beach club owners are up against not just the Italian government but the EU. Under a law called the Bolkestein directive, Brussels has been pushing for years for the sector to be opened up and for concessions to be reallocated through a free and fair bidding process.
Four years ago, the European Commission opened infringement procedures against Rome after the government at the time passed a law which extended the beach concessions until 2033.
A subsequent government, led by Mario Draghi, the technocrat prime minister and former president of the European Central Bank, vowed to end the concessions and put them out to tender, but his administration collapsed before the measures could be implemented.
A ‘Wild West’ scenario
Ms Meloni, who was elected in 2022, extended the concessions until the end of this year, when they are due to be opened up to bidders from the rest of the EU.
Beach club owners say that will unleash a “Wild West” scenario in which decades of hard work will count for nothing and jobs will be lost.
Antonio Capacchione, the president of the Italian Union of Beach Operators, is calling for the government to pass a law that would affirm all the beach concessions and guarantee “certainty” to the entire sector.
“We’re the Florida of Europe – our beaches draw tourists from Britain, Germany, France, all over. But right now, it’s chaos,” Mr Capacchione told The Telegraph.
“Imagine if you are a beach club owner who 20 years ago sank his life savings into the business. You trusted the government’s assurances that concessions would be renewed. Now, suddenly, the government is saying ‘I’m sorry, you made a mistake’. We deserve more respect.”
Italian beach clubs offer the highest level of comfort in all of Europe, he claims. “They provide services, and for that customers have to pay.”
Italy’s battle of the beaches is unlikely to end anytime soon.
Mr Hallissey warned: “The beach club operators have the support of Right-wing parties in the coalition, especially The League. They’re an important source of votes. It’s a very strong lobby.”