Beach concessions: a gift to the seaside lobby

The waste, especially when public money is at stake, it almost always matches the interests of a lobby which derives its benefits at the expense of the entire community. A case in point is that of the bathing facilities: every year, when summer comes, it turns out that the managers pay ridiculous figures for annual fees of rent and every government in office pretends to ignore the two European condemnations against Italy for seaside concessions without competitive bidding. However, the gigantic gift is regularly extended: the last time until 2034. Then the summer ends and everything goes by the wayside: the seaside concessions are no longer being discussed until next year.

BEACH CONCESSIONS

The beach concessions are all over 26.689, but of these, 21.581 (about 70 percent) have a value of less than 2.500 euros per year, equal to 200 euros per month. All without a tender and continuously extended. With the addition of a report coming directly from the Revenue Agency: Two out of three managers do not declare their earnings to the tax authoritiesTo get an idea of ​​the disproportion, just take a look at the revenues of the municipality of Arzachena, where the Costa Smeralda territory falls, for the 59 concessions assigned: 19 thousand euros per year, 3222 euros per day. Less than what you pay for a beach umbrella and a sunbed (400 euros per day) for a day on the beach. beach in one of the five-star hotels in the area.

ALSO READ: Italy's most beautiful beach, in southern Sardinia, is being bought by an environmentalist association. It's the first time this has happened, and we hope it won't be the last (photo).

STATE BEACH CONCESSIONS

There's little to discuss about the numbers. With an official turnover (and then there are the undeclared, tax-exempt earnings...) of over 2 billion euros, this is the turnover of the beach establishments made in Italy, the State collects total fees for just over 103 million euro. And if we divide this figure by the 52.619 concessions granted To their lordships, the 30 concessionaires who pass the business down from father to son, we come to the conclusion that in Italy it costs more, in terms of space rental, to sell fruit from a cart in the middle of the street than to run a five-star beach resort.

WHO RECEIVES BEACH CONCESSIONS?

And they, the lucky group: what do they say? Flavio Briatore spoke for (almost) everyone, with his raw confession. For the most expensive beach resort in Italy, from 300 to 1.000 euros per day just to have a comfortable bath, the Twiga beach of Marina di Pietrasanta, in the heart of Versilia with its golden business at sea, the brilliant entrepreneur of luxury tourism, pays the State for the beauty of a annual fee di 17.169 €. Nothing. A real gift, and a gigantic waste di public moneyTwiga Beach, for example, offers its wealthy or very wealthy customers three types of Arabian tents, exclusive cabins, and a seawater swimming pool: hence the sky-high prices, even though the Versilia sea is certainly not the most beautiful in Italy. But we're still talking about an economic activity, which produces work e induced, woe betide anyone who demonizes it, and then everyone is free, at the seaside as in the mountains, to be plucked wherever and however they prefer.

But Briatore, perhaps moved by a minimum sense of decency, confessed to Corriere della Sera which in his case, a fair rent to be paid, a fair price e without waste of public revenues that would be of great use to the State (and therefore to all citizens), should not fall below the threshold of one hundred thousand euros. Ten times more than what is paid now. On the other hand, the scandal with  beaches given away ai beach managers It's not exclusive to a single territory, a single coast, or a specific beach. It's a general scandal, widespread throughout the Bel Paese of crafty and crafty individuals, and it's even more serious precisely where the most money and revenue circulates. In Costa Smeralda, another hub of seven-star tourism—I repeat, an important industry for the Italian economy—the hotels The locals generally have a peculiar habit. Rooms in these enchanting beach paradises cost €2 a night for those who can afford them, but the exclusive rental of the beach itself, paid by the hotel owners and managers and collected by the state, can reach up to €500 a year. This is the case for the beach Smooth Ruja, for which the owners of the Cala di Volpe hotel (super luxury category) pay a fee of 520 euro a yearOr the mere 19 euros a year collected by the municipality of Arzachena in exchange for signing 59 concessions.

SEA LOBBY

Aside from Briatore, whose members range from Daniela Santanché to the Soldano twins and Dimitri Kunz Habsburg of Lorraine, the maritime lobby is very transversal. There are former bankers, coincidentally involved in banking disasters such as Carige in Genoa and Popolare di Lodi: Gabriele Volpi and Giampiero Fiorani. They entered through the front door, always with super-discounted contracts, in the beach business of the Ligurian Riviera and also on the Costa Smeralda. Then there are the old ones, stainless and powerful families: Gianluigi and Margherita Campodonico in Santa Margherita, Giuseppe Cinque in Positano, the Albanese brothers in Capri, the Vellozzi brothers in Gaeta, the Carbonellis in Sabaudia.

So far the powerful sea ​​lobby has always won. And we find ourselves with concessions of bathing facilities (located on state-owned land) given at huge discount rates, with an enormous waste of public moneyYet fair, market-based rents, the market so many talk about inappropriately, would immediately become a means of achieving the various objectives of the government, whatever government is in office. And there would be no more gifts and privileges even for the shady part of the beach industry, the one where criminal clans have their hands. Does the Ostia coastline, with its horrific crime stories, ring a bell?

TO KNOW MORE: In Italy, there wouldn't be any problems if we decided to make everyone pay taxes. Instead, read this book and you'll understand where we've ended up...

WHO GRANTS STATE BEACH CONCESSIONS

The state concessions of the beaches, the rentals, represent on paper avaluable income for the public funds, where money is always scarce. And it's scarce even for gaps like these, which then lead to higher taxes paid by all honest citizens. The beaches, for the state and for the public administration in general, should be worth a gold mine, but instead they bring in the equivalent of a collective tip. Just think: overall, the state, as we were saying, collects approximately 103 million euros a year for state concessions with  beaches, equal to an average figure of 6.106 € per square kilometer. Yes, kilometers, not meters, as should be the case according to calculations by independent economists who would like to introduce a modicum of fairness in this sector.

All things considered, the maritime state concessions in Italy are a gigantic business. In favor of the few and to the exclusion of the many. There are 52.619 contracts signed and 25 thousand concessions which are worth the ownership and management of 19,2 million square meters of beachesOverall, in Italy, surrounded by the sea, 60 percent of beaches are occupied by beach resorts, with some regions where this percentage rises to 90 percent. Another waste, given that this takes away space from the public beach, where anyone can bathe without paying a cent. Like in America, not Madagascar.

The fraud against citizens, I take responsibility for the weight of this word, is also evident from another fact. The concession fees for all Italian beaches represent just the 2 percent of turnover of all bathing facilities of the country: Briatore argues, speaking from the concessionaires' point of view, that the fee should be equal, for each facility, to at least 4 percent of its turnover. The real fee, not one that's been manipulated downwards, trying to avoid tax-free black market revenues. Practically speaking, we are giving these beaches away to people who legitimately carry out their tourism, recreational and catering activities. money and business, in short, having acquired a real position of privilege. While the state squanders them and throws them out the window.

TO KNOW MORE: We like electronic invoicing as long as it knocks out tax evaders. As happened in Portugal. And as long as it catches those who are sneaky.

BEACH CONCESSION RULES

If we move from numbers to the real world, to stories with real people, the scandal is even more evident. In all Italian regions, none excluded, even though the range of waste is very wide. Stromboli, for example, for the most beautiful beaches in the world the concessionaires they pay the stratospheric sum of 100 euros per monthThe bill for a couple of people at the restaurant of one of these establishments and/or kiosks. And the region of Sicily, always generous when it comes to wasting public money, takes home, overall, from the state concessions of its wonderful beaches, scattered throughout the island, the beauty of 81 thousand euros per year, in comparison, just to stay within the South, of the 452 thousand euros collected by Basilicata, where the beaches are certainly not inferior either in number or in beauty.

BEACH CONCESSIONS COSTS

Shall we move on? Concessions at rock-bottom prices they register at Capri, Positano, Ischia (Campania), but also, as we've seen, in Versilia (Tuscany), the Ligurian Riviera (Liguria), and the ultra-exclusive beaches of Maremma and Sardinia. Practically everywhere. From a simple calculation, based on reliable numbers and not random data, in the Versilia area alone, thanks to rock-bottom and wasted beach rentals, the state collects just €1.6 million. It could raise €15 million. And do you know how much could be done—for schools, services, and street furniture—in an area as small as Versilia, with an extra €15 million a year?

Faced with the wasteful gift granted to the powerful lobby (which controls many votes in the territory) of the beach managers, the consumer-citizen is mocked twiceThe first, because with the revenues not arriving, the state is forced either to raise taxes or cut services (schools, hospitals, pensions). The second time, when they pay the bill for their day on the beach, where a simple sun lounger costs no less than 10-15 euros and can reach up to 40-50 euros a day. Plus, there's everything else to round out the bill for a day at the beach, perhaps with family in tow.

Needless to say, an adjustment of rental rates Such scandalous measures should not be taken against small, simple family businesses in places not very popular with tourists, where only the sacrifice and hard work of parents, children, and grandchildren allows a mini-beach resort to make ends meet.

STATE BEACH CONCESSIONS:

BEACH CONCESSIONS AND ACCOUNTING CRITICISM

While the government, and the entire Parliament, they continue not to touch the concession rates, concerned only with not disturbing the lobby of the factories (every year in Italy there are local elections...), there are other subjects who remain to thunder against this waste, with Manzonian cries. For example, State accounting which speaks, in unusually harsh tones, of "suboptimal use of public assets" and "failure to respect the general interest." It adds that these extensions represent a distortion of competition, the market, and free entrepreneurial activity. More or less the same objections come from the European Union, which considers Italy a unique case in Europe, whereas in all other countries, starting with France with its French Riviera, the concessions, with the related rates, are updated every yearThe blanket extension, without any differentiation, also generalizes the situations of operators, which can be very different and therefore should be distinguished. A small family business, operating on the edge of a modest profit, is one thing, while companies monopolizing beach luxury with the rates we've discussed are quite another.

REORGANIZATION OF STATE BEACH CONCESSIONS

Strangely enough, in Parliament more than one member of parliament and one senator, for years, have noticed the shameful gift to the “lords of the beaches” and they had the extraordinary courage (maybe they were elected in some area of ​​the Dolomites...) to ask for a price review, meanwhile, stuck in the distant 1989. But so far nothing substantial has happened. And we're stuck with Mina's song: Parole, parole, parole.

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