Competition Law in Tourism

TOURISM AND COMPETITION IN THE ITALIAN LEGAL SYSTEM 325 The Italian legislator, notwithstanding the clear warning that (even) the Court of Justice issued in 2016, continues systematically to extend the duration of ongoing concessions or continues to grant rights of preference, so called rights of insistence, to the exiting licensee4. In order not to contradict the well-defined “Loch Ness Syndrome”5, consisting of the progressive alternation between situations of placid calm and situations of alarming tension, even recently, with the financial law of 2019, the national legislator introduced another extension of fifteen years for the ongoing concessions, awaiting indefinitely for an organic review of the subject matter, which will probably lead to the opening of a new infringement proceeding by the EU Commission6. The case has already been addressed by the Antitrust authority on several occasions, highlighting several twisted competition profiles affecting the regime of the concessions of bathing establishments7. Recently, by means of a report dated December 2018, it was stressed the need for new legal rules prescribing the selection of concessions abiding by the principles of competition, transparency and impartiality8. The case was dealt with again recently by the national anticorruption authority which, by addressing the weaknesses of the service concessions, stressed, among others, the problem of the custom of having expired extensions and, consequently, the need for the legislator to intervene by imposing the awarding by a public procurement proceeding9. The choices of the national legislator generated a general ossification of the layouts of the existing markets, favouring the development of a vast national juridical debate under two levels: on the one hand, the case law handed down by the administrative judge and the preliminary rulings to the Court of Justice about the correctness of the interpretation of Directive 2006/123/CE; on the other, the rulings declaring the incompatibility with the Constitution of regional 4 C.J.E.U. 14 July 2016, C-458/14 and C-67/15. 5 G. Marchegiani, Le concessioni demaniali marittime e la sindrome di Lock Ness, in www.giustamm.it, 2015. 6 See Art. 1, para 675-684, of Law no. 145 dated 30 December 2018, confirmed by Art. 34, para 2, of Legislative Decree no. 34 dated 19 May 2020, no 34. 7 A.g.c.m., 12 December 2017, AS 1468; A.g.c.m., 29 November 2012, AS 994; A.g.c.m. 9 August 2012 AS 975; A.g.c.m., 24 July 2009, AS 551; A.g.c.m. 11 December 2008, AS 491; A.g.c.m. 20 October 2008, AS 481; A.g.c.m. 28 October 1998, AS 152. 8 A.g.c.m., 20 December 2018, AS 1550. 9 A.n.a.c., Report no. 4 dated 17 October 2018.

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