PESCARA. Obligation to tender for the awarding of beach concessions – rulings of the Council of State – indications of the Competition Authority – free beaches – implementation of the Maritime State Property Plan of the Abruzzo Region. These are the themes reported in the letter sent to bodies and prosecutors by eight environmental associations (Abruzzo Ornithological Station, Rewilding Apennines, LIPU Abruzzo, Environmentalist Forum, H2O Forum, ALTURA, Paliurus and the Legal Intervention Group.
“As is known, we read in the letter, despite the timely and preventive warnings of the Competition Authority and the numerous and unambiguous sentences of the highest bodies of Administrative Justice which required the non-application by officials of the internal rules which provided for extensions to maritime concessions being in clear conflict with European rules, several Abruzzo municipalities have nevertheless arranged for the extension of the concessions to the end of 2024 (in some cases even to 2033), thus circumventing the application of community rules.
The very recent ruling of the Council of State 3940/2024 of 04/30/2024 did nothing but reiterate what was already known to all those involved in the sector and, that is, the illegitimacy of extensions beyond 12/31/2023 and the necessity , if you want to reassign the concessions that have now irretrievably expired, to proceed through a public tender. In this regard, the undersigned associations, apart from the assessment relating to the possible consequences of the actions of the officials and administrators in various capacities involved in the further illegitimately granted extensions, wish to highlight the following.
Abruzzo is among the regions with the highest percentage of sandy coast with concessions for beach establishments. In some municipalities the 60-70% of areas assigned under concession are even well exceeded, which has led to a strong anthropization of the beach complete with reinforced concrete structures and total desertification of the beaches
with work with mechanical means of all types. This condition has clearly jeopardized the protection of the coastal natural heritage, as demonstrated by the very high number of taxa of both flora and fauna of species linked to dune environments in poor conservation status or even extinct.
In various technical documents, ISPRA itself has ascertained the very serious state of environmental stress to which the country’s coastal environments are subjected. The same Regional Maritime State Property Plan of 2005, with the related V.Inc.A. proceedings. and SEA and the consequent provisions, admits this condition of extreme suffering of coastal habitats, directing, at least on paper, towards environmental renaturalization and restoration interventions, all of which are largely ignored by administrations at all levels. In this sense, in the opinion of the Associations, there is an alternative in addition to the tenders
absolutely to be pursued and, that is, to follow up on the indications of the Regional Plan by not putting part of the concessions up for tender but by returning a significant portion of these to a free beach, to be managed with low environmental impact methods.
This proposal, we further read in the document, is not to be considered as a return to uncontrolled use of the coast; Yes
it would only be a matter of repeating what already happens in most European countries where free beaches are equipped for access (with public transport stops; shuttle connections from these if distant; parking for cars, they are paid to discourage their use moving towards collective means of transport with low environmental or ecological impact), cycle and pedestrian accesses and paths and seasonal reception points created close to (and not on) the beaches where users are provided with services including the rental of umbrellas and sunbeds. A similar form of use would allow both the development of local entrepreneurial initiatives (without the privatization and stable occupation of maritime state property) and the protection of residual coastal natural environments.
Among other things, this option would have enormous positive repercussions both from the point of view of social equity, given that many people do not have incomes capable of affording to pay for the expensive services currently provided by operators in the sector, and from the point of view of tourism. itself, considering that large countries where very few concessions exist (see France), with vast areas of coastline with dunes and psammophilous vegetation, are better performing tourist destinations than our country. Finally, for the sections to be granted in concession through tender, which should be residual, rigid indicators for the partial renaturalisation of the beach should be considered among the parameters for the selection of operators, such as, by way of example, the reconstruction of strips dunes in the sections behind the shadows (between these and the coastal roads/cycle paths) and the use of appropriate materials with low environmental impact both for the structures, which must be truly removable, and for the shadows (see the dramatic issue of the use of synthetic plastic raffia widely and irresponsibly used by many Abruzzo operators).
It will not be overlooked that the current heavy and totally unsustainable use of maritime state property has seriously exacerbated the phenomena of coastal erosion which has entailed and will entail public expenditure of tens of millions of euros which renaturalisation would at least partially save, also in the perspective of the critical issues posed by the rise in sea levels caused by the climate crisis. Also in this sense, the obligatory interventions to mitigate the risks of climate change impose coherent choices for the management of maritime state property, decreasing the anthropic pressure on these “transitional” environments, as required also in this case by community regulations and international agreements. The writing associations, hoping that the choices of the administrations at various levels are based on a concretely balanced and ecologically sustainable management, which can only happen with decisions that follow the indications set out above, remain available for any further information”, concludes the note .
