According to Legambiente’s latest Beach Report 2024, the 46% of Italian sandy coasts is subject to phenomena of coastal erosionin addition to risks linked to climate change which are increasingly reducing the portion of accessible coastline. Added to this is the problem of beach concessions: according to the Legambiente report, the 33% of the Italian coasts are subject to concessionswith regions such as Liguria, Emilia-Romagna and Campania with approximately 70% of their coasts occupied by beach resorts which reduce the portions of free beaches available to citizens.
Mapping the Italian Coast
The coastline of our country has been the subject of a mapping by a special Commission established by the “Annual law for the market and competition 2021” who in 2023 had declared that only 33% of the Italian coast was the subject of bathing concessions. The data, contested by numerous environmental associations and brought to the attention of the European Commission, took into consideration the entire Italian coast, including both bathing areas and low coasts as well as rocky coast areas, inaccessible or not bathing, also including ports or industrial areas. The quantity of public coastlines is actually decreasing more and more: according to the‘ISPRA (State Institute for Environmental Protection and Research)the total surface area of the beaches in Italy measures only 120 square kilometers. And according to Legambiente, the beach resorts in our country they are 12.166: among the regions where the coast is most occupied we find Campania, Emilia Romagna and Liguria, with the 70% of the coast occupied. Furthermore, the 22.8% of the coastal strip within 300 metres is artificialised: Marche and Liguria are the regions with the highest percentages, with approximately half of the land consumed, followed by Abruzzo, Emilia-Romagna, Campania and Lazio with values between 31% and 37%. This phenomenon, together with coastal erosion and problems of environmental or anthropic nature are increasingly restricting public bathing areas for citizens.
The European Bolkestein Directive on Beach Concessions
There European Commission Bolkestein Directive (2006/123/EC), named after the European Commissioner for the Internal Market Frederik Bolkesteinis a European standard of 2006 cwhich imposes a series of rules to protect the seaside resorts and tries to preserve the free competition in the sector. The directive concerns beach concessions and provides for the assignment of state concessions through tenders public and which provide for a fair turnover among operators in the sector. TheItaly Since 2010, however, it has extended the existing beach concessions, not applying the legislation and for this reason it has received a infringement measure by the European Commission in November 2023, with two months to comply with the EU directive, under penalty of a fine of approximately 800 million euros. In fact, Italy has not complied with the directive for years, continually extending the deadlines for beach concessions.
Protection and accessibility strategies
Due to natural phenomena such as thesea level rise and of the surface temperature of the sea, Italian coastal areas are a vulnerable natural heritage, to be preserved and enhanced. According to the Legambiente 2024 report, the increase in temperature compared to the reference period 1981-2010, has gone from a minimum of 1.9 °C in the Central and Western Mediterranean areas and in the Ligurian Sea, at a maximum of 2.3 °C in the northern and central Adriatic. For this reason it is important to plan some protection and accessibility projects to the coasts of our country: trying to limit or prohibit the reconstruction of buildings or infrastructures in risk areas, awareness-raising actions towards citizens, a use of land that in particularly vulnerable areas allows not to build any structure. The proposal, which emerged from the 2024 Beach Report, is to work together to guarantee a minimum of at least 50% of the beaches in every municipality “left to the free and free use of citizens”. This must also include rules for the use of the beaches, guaranteeing citizens free passage and access to use the free beach.
