The European Union on Thursday raised the pressure on Italy over freeing up the market for beach club licences, which the bloc's court of justice said must finally be subject to impartial and transparent tenders.
The licences to rent out sun loungers and beach umbrellas are traditionally family-controlled and passed down from one generation to another in Italy, despite rival entrepreneurs saying they have been shut out unfairly from a major business.
Successive Italian governments have dragged their feet over liberalising the sector, despite pro-competition rulings from Italy's top administrative court and warnings from Brussels that Rome risks fines over non-compliance with EU rules.
Underscoring the sensitivity of the subject, the European Commission initially welcomed the European Court of Justice's ruling and said Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had offered to comply with Brussels' demands, but later toned down its remarks.
Meloni met EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton last week in Rome, and a commission spokesperson said in a Brussels media briefing on Thursday that Breton had used the occasion to raise the beach licences issue.
The spokesperson said Meloni had in response "guaranteed that Italian authorities will very quickly ensure the implementation of European legislation... so it means national authorities will proceed with aligning national legislation with European rules".
The spokesperson, Sonya Gospodinova, later said in an email however that the Meloni-Breton meeting was "not about" the beach issue and that "neither side made any commitments regarding next steps". The Commission declined to clarify further.
After repeated delays, beach concessions were meant to be put out to tender by 2024, but Meloni's government has put this off by a year. A government source told Reuters that the government is considering returning to the 2024 deadline.
Meloni's nationalist coalition has pushed for existing, mostly Italian, licence-holders to keep their concessions, arguing that opening up the sector to foreign competition might push up prices and lead to a trampling of local traditions.
However, the EU Court ruled that the licences could not be automatically renewed. "The national courts and the administrative authorities are required to apply the relevant rules of EU law," it said.
The licences are officially state owned, but rarely come up for public bidding.
In 2019, the government raised just 115 million euros ($125.96 million) from the sale of beach licences, while the business itself is estimated to be worth some 15 billion euros annually, according to a study by the Nomisma consultancy.
($1 = 0.9130 euros)
(Reporting by Marine Strauss, Giuseppe Fonte and Alvise Armellini; Editing by Crispian Balmer, Susan Fenton and Jan Harvey)
