‘Sunbed wars’: Europe cracks down on illegal beachfront businesses

This summer, Greece has cracked down on businesses that unlawfully occupy stretches of the coast and has fined perpetrators €1,150,000 in total.

Many restaurants and bars were violating the law on free public access to the sea, coast and beaches, which has sparked “sunbed wars”.

The Greek ministry of economy and finance confirmed that more than 4,500 beach checks were carried out in July after citizens complained of country-wide rule breaches.

In March, the Balkan country introduced a series of tightened beach rules, including a minimum four-metre gap between sunbeds.

It also stipulated, in an effort to control overcrowding, that sunbeds must only take up a maximum of 30 per cent of a beach.

Across 150 Greek beaches, hundreds of businesses have been investigated by the police and municipal authorities, with fines given to those found to be breaking the rules.

Authorities made it illegal for businesses to set up sunbeds beyond their designated boundaries and criminalised the act of occupying beach areas without a lease.

Beaches in Halkidiki, Eastern Attica, Preveza, the Dodecanese and Cyclades island groups, Corfu and Chania in Crete have faced the most reports and investigations.

Most complaints by concerned citizens were made via the MyCoast beach planning app as well as by phone calls to the local ministry representatives.

“The broader picture that emerged following the massive checks conducted in the last weeks is clearly improved compared to previous years as the majority of businesses providing beach services have conformed to the new rules and regulatory framework,” Greece’s economy and finance ministry said in a statement.

“However, the checks of complaints also found many violations, which ranged from a lack of signs to overtaking space limits with sun shades and even arbitrarily occupying public space without a concession contract,” it added.

“In all cases where checks found violations the businesses face administrative fines, while those operating without a concession contract were shut down.”

While the ministry added that the checks will continue at a “more intensive pace” throughout the summer, they did confirm that more businesses are following the rules than in previous years.

It comes after Greeks have put their collective feet down over the practice.

What is Greece’s “Towel Movement”?

In 2023, the so-called towel movement began in Paros, an island in the Cyclades, before spreading across the country.

It saw Greeks take to the streets to demand restoration of free public access to the country’s beaches and nature as enshrined in the law.

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Those protests spurred the economy and finance ministry to set up a procedure to grant concessions on coasts and beaches via electronic auctions.

This year, the number of contracts granted for the use of coastal and beach areas has already broken records, with more than 1,800 requests.

The move came after news in July that Greece had started enforcing new rules to stop businesses from charging high rates for sunbeds and parasols.

On the party island of Mykonos, restaurants and bars are known to charge more than €150 per person just for the use of a sunbed and towel.

Are other countries preventing beach rip offs?

Following Greece’s lead is Italy, where at one beach club in Praiano on the Amalfi Coast, a sunbed costs at least €100, with a minimum spend on food and drinks of €100 added to the charge.

At La Scogliera in Positano, a bed, towel and water comes with a hefty €186 price tag and at Fornillo Beach, also in Positano, a sunbed can cost €40-€50 per person – with the small, free area of the beach often filling up quickly during peak periods.

Italy has a “sunbed war” of its own rumbling under the surface.

Beach club operators in the country are threatening to go on strike following the EU’s plans for their businesses.

Known locally as lidos, many of these enterprises have been traditionally passed down through generations of families. That system has often been criticised as a monopoly.

Some are basic businesses, renting out sunbeds for low prices, while others hire their beds for much higher rates, sometimes closer to €200 in fancy resorts.

Regardless of the style of these companies, rules put in place by the EU mean that licences for these beach clubs will be up for tender from early 2025.

As in Greece, a significant proportion of beach has been encroached upon by lido operators, leaving just a small sliver that is free to use.

It has become a problem in many areas along Italy’s coast. Estimates suggest that 50 per cent of all of the available space is managed by lidos and other business, such as campsites – while parts of the other 50 per cent don’t allow swimming.

The lido owners now say that if the Italian government doesn’t help to protect their businesses and award them with compensation if any changes do come into play, they will strike in August – the busiest time for tourism.

The EU rules have been a long time in the works. Back in 2006, it put in place competition rules, known as the Bolkestein Directive.

Under the plan, the lidos will have to be reallocated through a fair bidding process.

It has been postponed several times, with the latest attempt by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in 2022. She successfully extended the current system until the end of 2024 but attempts since then have been rejected by the EU.

Lido owners say the plans threaten both the survival of their business and the livelihoods of around 300,000 employees country-wide.

Rent from the lidos and surrounding beach space brings in just €100m a year for the Italian government. From five million square metres of the businesses, revenue is estimated to be in the region of €32bn, meaning that saving the lido tradition does not make financial sense for Italy’s authorities.