Italy’s Beach Operators Protest Against Liberalization of Sector

This European country has 6,592 beach operators that employ some 44,000 seasonal workers.

On Friday, beach operators called a limited strike across Italy to protest against the planned liberalization of the sector. Lido managers opened two hours later than usual (9:30 a.m. instead of 7:30 a.m.), and kept their beach umbrellas shut during the morning heat.

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Private establishments cover over 42 percent of Italy’s coastline, and operate on public licenses assigned through public tenders. Friday’s protest was held over a recent ruling from a top Italian legal authority that prevented Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s cabinet from delaying the next public tender.

The controversy is not new. The European Union (EU) first ordered Italy to liberalize its beach sector and put licenses up for tender in 2006, as the country is not currently aligned with EU rules on fair competition and transparency. However, the Italian government did not comply.

The EU repeated its request several times in the next few years, and the dispute was recently rekindled as the current beach concessions expired at the end of December 2023, and should be reassigned through a new public tender.

Now that the cabinet’s decision to postpone the tender has been stopped by the ruling of the Italian Council of State, an advisory body for administrative justice, the next tender should be held in 2025.

Italy has at least 6,592 beach operators, according to data from Nomisma Consultancy in 2023. These operators manage 10,443 beach resorts and lidos, employing some 44,000 seasonal workers.

Most beach businesses are family-run — often passed down through generations of the same families. They fear they would not be able to survive if the sector opened to new competitors, especially multinational actors. On the other hand, Italian rival businesses say they have long been kept out of the sector, and that they are subject to unfair competition due to the lack of regular public tenders.

teleSUR/ JF Source: Xinhua