It is one of the conditions for the receipt of funds from the European development plan: Italy has to submit a law on the promotion of competition in various areas of life - from municipal services and public transport to the energy sector to taxis and beach operators.

Non-transparent procurement procedures, missing tenders and monopolies with no time limit should be a thing of the past, according to the standard from Brussels.

Christian Schubert

Economic correspondent for Italy and Greece.

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Several months late, the Italian government of Prime Minister Mario Draghi has now presented the relevant draft law. As the head of government said at the presentation, it is a compromise. Because the proposals for this had met with considerable resistance from the right-wing populist Lega party in his government.

The government claims that by advancing, it is giving small and medium-sized businesses greater opportunities, which will also benefit consumers. But the chairman of the UNC consumer association, Massimiliano Dona, commented: "It is a flop, a total disappointment." The draft law that has now been submitted should introduce competition as much as possible and, where this is not possible, at least ensure more transparency.

The dilemma is evident in the paying beaches, which for many Italians are a kind of national sanctuary. There are thousands of "stabilimenti balneari" on the 7000 kilometers of coastline. There, the beach visitor pays for the parasol, for the loungers, and he also gets the culinary catering from an attached snack bar or restaurant. Who is the operator of these plants, which quite a few call gold mines, is largely unknown, as is why who was awarded the contract.

It also remains in the dark what sums of money flow to the public purse. The beach operators are finally allowed to do their business on public land and pay for it - but not a lot: According to an estimate by a consulting company, the Italian tax authorities are only entitled to 115 million euros a year, although the beaches are believed to have a turnover of around 15 billion euros. And not even this sum is collected by the public purse.

Draghi's attempt at opening up, however, came up against its limits. The Lega objected to allegedly wanting to protect small local entrepreneurs with the reprimand. So the government is content with an attempt to shed more light on the darkness. In the future, everyone should know who received the beach licenses for which period and what they are paying for them. According to the European Bolkestein Directive of 2006, the municipalities would have to rewrite the beach sections at the Lidos every few years. So far, all governments have refrained from doing this.

There is little progress elsewhere, complain the consumer advocates: The cancellation costs for telephone contracts have not been set to zero.

The proposal to let the notaries carry out their activities throughout the national territory has been deleted, as has the requirement to promote tenders in local public transport.

At least the powers of the antitrust authority have been strengthened, but only in the area of ​​concentration and the abusive exploitation of economic dependencies.

Unfair business practices and the tightening of sanctions are not mentioned.

It should be possible to set up companies more quickly in the future: The deadline for notification of the establishment has been shortened from 7 to 4 days.

In the case of taxis, Uber-like services are to be given more opportunities.

The taxi unions have already announced protests.