The issue of the tenders for the assignment of the beaches and the Municipalities of Cervia and Ravenna will have to defend themselves before the TAR for having applied the one-year extension to the existing concessions. The Competition and Market Authority (Agcm) has, in fact, resolved the appeals to the TAR against 21 coastal municipalities that have applied the one-year extension of beach concessions without calling public tenders. This is Chioggia in Veneto; Ravenna, Cervia and Misano Adriatico in Emilia-Romagna; Camaiore, Forte dei Marmi, Pietrasanta, Viareggio, Carrara and Grosseto in Tuscany; Pescara, Fossacesia and Vasto in Abruzzo; Fiumicino, Formia and Gaeta in Lazio; Camerota, Minori, Sapri and Pontecagnano Faiano in Campania; Ginosa in Puglia. The appeals to the TAR follow the warnings that the Agcm sent in recent months against the municipal administrations that made use of the technical extension provided for by law 118/2022 of the Draghi government. On the basis of that law, which implemented the sentences of the plenary meeting of the Council of State in November 2021, the concessions expired on 31 December 2023, but an additional year is possible, until 31 December 2024, in order to to conclude the selective procedures in the case of “objective difficulties” that have made it impossible to do so by 2023. The Agcm accused the 21 Municipalities of having made use of the technical extension without even having started the tender procedures. The Competition Authority instead decided not to appeal against many other administrations that had received the warning, but which in the meantime had started the tender process.
“We are convinced that in the end the TAR – explains Maurizio Rustignoli, president of the Spiagge di Ravenna cooperative and of Fiba, an association that brings together the beach establishments belonging to Confesercenti – will agree with the mayors for a very simple reason, namely that they have done nothing other than apply the law. Law 118 allows for an extension and the mayors have prepared it precisely because of the difficulty in calling the tenders. And here is the point: the implementing decrees are needed to determine the compensation. The one who is missing is the government. not the mayors.” And the situation is becoming increasingly complex: “But certainly – concludes Rustignoli – because if the Municipalities call for tenders there is only the risk of a mega-litigation on the part of the current concessionaires”.
Giorgio Costa
