This issue has heated up Italian beaches. Parasols have been closed in protest

For nearly two decades, the European Commission has been fighting a legal battle with Italy over paid beach use, accusing the country of a lack of transparency and infringement of competition rules. Beachgoers on the Italian peninsula pay a variety of fees, from entry to equipment rentals such as parasols. That’s because beaches in Italy are privately owned, unlike in Spain and France, for example.

Changes to concessions?

The AP agency notes that governments from left to right have resisted EU directives, but from the beginning of 2025, Rome has run out of time and has to comply with the Community’s rules. This means that the country should announce tenders for concessions, which did not please the owners.

“We are in a phase of total uncertainty and we want our rights to be preserved,” Susanna Barbadoro, who represents the third generation of beach concession owners in Ostia, a popular seaside town near Rome, told AP. On Aug. 9, beach owners closed their umbrellas for two hours to protest the changes.

Private beaches in the hands of families for generations

Beach concessions have been passed down from generation to generation for decades. Their critics see them as a kind of monopoly and a symbol of Italy’s resistance to economic reform.

Entrance fees for beachgoers vary along the Italian coast: They can range from 25 euros for a day’s hire of two sunbeds and an umbrella at the most basic establishments, to several hundred euros at fancy resorts such as Capri or Salento in Puglia. In the famous resort of Rimini (15 km of beaches), for example, more than 90 of them are privately owned.

Members of the association “Mare Libero” (Free Sea) have been protesting since 2019 to regain free space on Italian beaches. They hope that introducing new rules in the tender process will also help to guarantee beachgoers sufficiently free access to seaside recreation.

Italian Minister for European Affairs Raffaele Fitto said in August that advanced talks on the matter were underway with EU representatives.