"The law legalizes privatization because, despite the fact that you cannot own maritime property, but get the concession for a certain period of time, the basic question remains - what will be left if a resource is drained and the money is taken away."
Maja Jurišić is the head of the Island Movement (Pokret otoka), an association which gathers representatives from 35 of about 60 inhabited Adriatic islands today, with about 400 members. Tena Erceg of Portal Novosti spoke to Ms Jurišić on August 13, 2017.
The Island Movement gained momentum in early summer when the Split-Dalmatia County approved concession for the most famous Croatian beach, Zlatni rat in Bol on Brač. The islanders protested against it, which resulted in the concession being cancelled, and 'Can you hear your islands, your coast' protest raised awareness about the dangers of the Law on Concession, which the government tried to push through without a public hearing. Ms Jurišić founded the Awakening (Buđenje), the only association on the island of Šolta that received and spent EU funding, creating jobs for three islanders. The municipality supported the association by giving it a free space, but when a vast vineyard was supposed to be built on a section of the municipal land, the support from the municipality, county and the local population disappeared overnight.
A problem that is bigger than beaches is the concession on seaports and anchorages, approved by Ivan Vrdoljak (HNS, Croatian People's Party), related to gas exploration
Together with the Green Action and Sunce Association from Split, they insisted that the investor make a study of environmental impacts because a large part of the land belongs to the EU's Natura 2000 ecological network, so they are required by law to make a study. The drywall was ground and turned into building material, and heavy machinery almost triggered rock slides and covered caves, that the island's southern side is filled with.
“The county has rejected all our requests. The Sunce Association revoked that decision in the Ministry of Environment and Energy, but someone had inside people, and the project went under the table. The investor has continued with construction works without a proper study on the impact on the environment, and there have been talks about repurposing the land," she says.
When a bus filled with islanders was invited to come to a study trip to Brussels by MEP Davor Škrlec, you realized that you shared very similar concerns. What are the biggest problems of the islands and their inhabitants?
Despite the rich nature, farmland, and housing facilities, there is a lack of investment money and people with the skills necessary to develop the islands, and young people are prone to leaving. The main problem is dislocation and not enough awareness among the population of the problems that are at hand. Soon there will be great demographic changes on the islands, because the old local population is dying out, and with them, knowledge and crafts, and young people do not want to continue doing them. On the other hand, we have noticed two types of migrations to islands, those investing exclusively for the purpose of gaining profits, who spend a couple of months on the islands and take the entire profit that they have earned back home with them. It means that resources are being drained without reinvestment and that is a huge problem. The second group are people who are aware of the problems, mostly younger retirees who have come here to run away from urban life. Digital nomads, meaning people who do not need an office to work, but only need a laptop and a good Wi-Fi connection are also one of the potential newcomers.
The Island Movement has really stood out during the attempted concession of Zlatni rat. How did you become involved in the case?
The case of Zlatni rat has raised awareness among all of us, in a way. The Island Movement is conceived as a social enterprise mapping and networking human and natural resources with the aim of bringing back the people with indispensable skills. Although we are not an activist network, when we were invited from Bol after the County Assembly's decision to grant a concession, we joined with the aim of unifying the people of Bol, but also appealing to their solidarity, not just to fight for Zlatni rat, but to help other islanders when they come across similar problems as well. We participated in the forum, after which substantial pressure was put on the County. The concession was abolished, County Prefect Zlatko Ževrnja had to resign, but after the concessions were divided, the people grew quiet.
We were invited to join the process of drafting a new Maritime Law, after which we sent a request to the Ministry to join the working group, but we have not received any response to this day.
Did the activities of the Law on Concessions immediately follow?
Although we focused on the beaches because they were current and convenient for raising awareness, of course, we are aware that all maritime property, including the entire territorial sea, the seabed, the flora and the fauna, are endangered. A problem that is bigger than beaches is the concession on seaports and anchorages, approved by Ivan Vrdoljak (HNS, Croatian People's Party), related to gas exploration. When we started with beaches, we realized that we had no idea who had the rights to which concession, for how long, what was written in their contract, how they managed it, whether they charged it, etc. We have also realized that there are numerous contradictions, so, for example, the Constitution guarantees all citizens the right to enjoy public property, but, on the other hand, when Jadranka Kosor was Prime Minister, a decree was passed that classified beaches into three categories: free beaches, paid beaches and paid fenced beaches. We will ask for a constitutional review of that particular regulation.
Let's repeat - what are the greatest dangers of the Law on Concessions?
The new law is not very different from the old one, but that's the problem because it is obvious that the system is not working. The law legalizes privatization because, despite the fact that you cannot own maritime property, but get the concession for a certain period of time, the basic question remains - what will be left if a resource is drained and the money is taken away. The local community has absolutely no say in the way a public property will be used, the investor has no obligation to reinvest in the community or hire local people, but they simply push them out.
The previous practice was to provide local governments with separate concession permits for cafes, deckchairs, aqua parks, and so on, so everyone would do their job, and it was mostly locals. Now, however, one concessionaire will be granted concession for all of these and he or she will decide who to hire. Larger areas will be controlled by a smaller number of people. Although there are concessions and there is corruption at the local level as well, in theory, it would be better for local communities to make decisions at lower levels, which are easier to influence. But now, everything will be decided upon by the counties, from tenders to implementation and choosing concessionaires, management decision-making, and the municipality does not even need to be notified about it.
You were particularly concerned about the possibility that the concession might be used as a pledge in banks?
It is extremely dangerous that concessionaires will have to have much more money to get larger areas, so they will have to borrow more money as well. If they do not return their loans, the banks will have no trouble accessing the concession contract, which means that they will become owners.
The problem is that there are laws passed by the Parliament, decrees issued by the Government and the regulations issued by the local self-government, and these documents are often mutually exclusive. As far as the Regulation is concerned, it is extremely complicated and subject to manipulation, and we believe it should be redefined because it does not take into account either the environmental or social component of the concession. In addition, there are also fixed and varied types of investment whereby an investor’s business plan does not require them to invest a percentage of the amount from the business plan, but from the income shown. For example, they can say in the bid that they will invest five million, but later pay a percentage of two million.
We have to be careful
Split-Dalmatia County has recently postponed the adoption of the Ordinance on the Use of Maritime Property in the County, and the Island Movement has submitted 13 amendments to this ordinance. What were they?
The fact that the county has even decided to draft an ordinance is a positive step, because there is no obligation to do so, prefects can, but don't have to, regulate concession grants in their counties. The first draft of the ordinance submitted by the county to local self-governments was bad, but the second draft excluded, for example, the possibility of fencing the beach and hiring security guards, which means that a lot of proposals made by the local self-governments were adopted.
Before the vote on the Ordinance was postponed to September, the Island Movement had created amendments that SDP County Counselor Damir Krstinić presented on our behalf, most of which should have been adopted. However, we have been told that some of the proposals that we consider to be of the utmost importance would not be accepted, for example, that all the documents concerning the concession be available in one place. Likewise, the county council people have claimed that there was a concession register, but when we started doing looking for them, we found out that, in order to get any information from the registry, you must know the concessionaire's PIN (OIB), name, and date when the contract was signed. So, all the information you want to find in the registry needs to be familiar to you in advance, and the registry has not been updated since 2012. Despite all this, the county government refused to adopt our proposal with the argument that these were not matters for an ordinance, but for a new law, and it hasn't been done in the new Law on Concessions. That is why the Island Movement will create a map of the entire coastline and add the messages on damage and other problems.
What else was controversial in the ordinance draft?
We have also sought to deny the possibility of setting up a fence, and there was a contradiction - one article stated that the concessionaire had no right to arrange deck chairs before they are sold, but the next article stated that this excluded everyone with non-folding deck chairs. Also, the current rule is that deck chairs may cover 40% of the area which is under concession, but it is not clear whether the area is the beach or the entire area, which means that the concessionaire can fill the entire beach with deck chairs, and it would still account for 40% percent of the total area. However, the ordinance now states that the Concessionaire should also submit a management plan with such details as part of the tender documents. We have demanded that the share be reduced to 30 percent and that only one-third of that are non-folding deck chairs.
There is also an article stating that the ordinance shall not apply to beaches that are not easily accessible or are small, so they have no economic value. We have asked for this article to be removed and that such beaches not be given to concessionaires if they have no value. This is an extremely dangerous article because we could lose the most valuable wild beaches, such as Stiniva on Vis.
The new Maritime Law is being drafted. Have you had a chance to see it?
We know that a secret document is around, we don't know if a working group has been selected, and in what way, if it has. We were invited to join the process of drafting the new Maritime Law, after which we sent a request to the Ministry to join the working group, but we have not received any response to this day from the person who invited us, State Secretary for the Sea Maja Markovčić Kostelac. The people who have seen the draft law say it is more harmful than the existing one and it does not address the problem of lack of control over the use of concessions. A good example of this is Bene, a beach in Split, the concession over which was given to the son of County Assembly President, Petroslav Sapunar, in a very shady way. The concession has been annulled but not taken away from him because the existing Maritime Law does not have a rule on how to take away a concession. A new tender must be announced within six months, which means that the concessionaire can work legally for another six months.
One of the biggest problems is that in many cases the maritime property border is not determined, so the law should state that concessions cannot be approved in such cases. In addition, maritime property management must be in line with spatial plans, but many municipalities do not have them, or, if they do, they are inadequate. In any case, we should be cautious about this and other legislative proposals as the Government has set a deadline of six months from the adoption of the Law on Concessions to amend the remaining 30 laws that are related to it and that will be used to decide on state-owned resources.
Translated from Portal Novosti.
