BOLOGNA -- Hundreds of beaches along Emilia Romagna’s Riviera Coast have decided to fly the British flag in a sign of protest against European Union laws.

 From the national bank holiday Ferragosto until the end of the summer season, around 400 beach resorts along the Emilia Romagna coast will be flying the British flag to show their opposition against a recent law made by the European Court of Justice, which ruled that family-owned concessions along Italy’s beaches must be open to EU-wide competition laws.

 “We are all against Brussels technocrats who want to destroy an entire category of business owners,” said businessmen from the coastline, according to Ligurian newspaper Il Secolo XIX.

 “It doesn’t mean that we too want to leave the European Union, but by flying the British flag, we want to convey the anger of beach operators and their families towards the fact that their future is in the hands of technocrats… This is not the Europe that we believe in or want to live in.” These were the words of FIB and SIBA who spoke on behalf of beach resorts along the Emilia Romagna coast.

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