"This initiative is useless and harmful to customers: we are not participating." This is what Stefano Battistelli, a member of the National Committee of "Popolo produttivo," said regarding the symbolic strike called nationwide by the FIBA (Italian Federation of Beach Resorts) and SIB (Autonomous Beach Resorts Union) to protest the Bolkestein directive.
The protest, which is being promoted in the city by the Civitanova Beach Resorts Association (ABC), involves closing umbrellas at participating beach resorts from 10 to 11 a.m. on Friday, as a symbolic gesture to demonstrate "their discomfort over an uncertain future and the lack of guarantees for the continuation of business," the organizers explained in a statement.
Members of "Popolo produttivo" are turning up their noses, and Battistelli, who owns the "Caribean" beach resort in the city, is speaking out for their concerns. "Throughout the region," he explains, "customers can rest assured; our beach umbrellas will be open as usual.
How can we even consider closing the beach umbrellas to tourists who perhaps only have a week's vacation and come to the beach looking for a few hours of relaxation? This strike will accomplish nothing." Battistelli, who has traveled to Brussels and Rome several times to defend the beach operators, sometimes even expressing solidarity with the farmers' protests, explains his association's decision not to join the protest scheduled for Saturday: "Two years ago," he continues, "we threatened not to open precisely to send a strong message against the Bolkestein directive.
That initiative would have made sense, as well as having a significant impact, yet the trade unions didn't support us. When we promoted other protests, they boycotted them. Today, however, they are calling for unity in the name of a strike that will serve no purpose, except to penalize a few beachgoers: it's absurd. And demanding tenders with compensation is crazy; we want to continue doing our job. And among the list," he concludes, "of Civitanova beach resorts that would have participated in Saturday's protest, there are some whose owners instead called me to inform me that they had not given their consent to participate. This is not how it should be done."