The way the Croatian Parliament adopted the new Law on Concessions caused a public uproar in recent days. The voting on the law was postponed last month after a chain of protests organised by the Island Movement Initiative on the coast and in Zagreb, but the law was again included in the voting schedule without informing the public beforehand and adopted with 77 votes in favour on July 1.
I’d love to say the move was unexpected, but sadly, it really isn’t that much of a surprise. Astonishment or disappointment might make for a better choice of words, because it’s hard to come to terms with the notion that any country would decide to sell off its coast piece by piece. We’re not delving deeper into this matter right now, but let’s instead see what this means for an average person who set their mind on spending a day at the beach.
Associate professor at the Department of Administrative Law Frano Staničić was contacted by Večernji list on July 3 to help shed some light on the matter. If you come across a beach that’s now under concession, does anyone have the right to stop you and do you have to pay to get in?
According to Staničić, the answer to both is no.
He confirmed restricting access to a ‘private’ beach directly opposes the Law on Maritime Property. Unfortunately, the new regulations on concession award procedure made it possible to charge the entrance to beaches under concession, even though that is technically illegal. Some hotels closed off beaches so they could be used solely by their guests; owners of seaside villas did the same. As explained by Staničić, none of that is legal: “Maritime property doesn’t belong to anyone but to the Republic of Croatia. The concession holder manages the beach, but has no right to charge the entrance to public property, only to rent out sun loungers and charge visitors for using any infrastructure at the beach. If you have a bay under concession, you can charge someone for mooring as that implies charging for the infrastructure you’ve built, but it’s not allowed to charge anyone for using maritime property. That’s considered usurpation of maritime property”, he said.
Does that mean forbidding access to private beaches means breaking the law?
“Yes. Nobody can be forbidden from entering an area of maritime property except if it’s a navy port. Private beaches in Croatia do not exist and cannot exist by law. There are public beaches and beaches under concession that you can’t close off as they are all part of maritime property that can be rightfully used by all citizens. In my opinion, the maximum to be allowed is for a concession holder to set a rule that you can use the beach only if you pay for a sun lounger, or any other part of installed equipment.”
What would happen if a concession holder raised the price of a sun lounger to 100 kuna? “The concession contract dictates the maximum price of loungers in order to prevent the concession holders from arbitrarily setting high prices”, stated Staničić.
Even though it’s good to know you’re backed by law if you want to lay your towel at any beach in Croatia, this will all certainly work better in theory than in practice. When you imagine an average person arguing with security at the entrance, can you guess who’s more likely to win?
