Meloni and Schlein clash over empty beaches this holiday season

 ROME - “I find it shameful that, in order to attack the government, certain opposition parties are spreading false news, damaging Italy's image and interests.” Giorgia Meloni lashes out at her political opponents, denying that there is a summer tourism crisis, despite complaints from beach resorts and images of empty beaches and closed umbrellas across the country. The prime minister was particularly annoyed by the attack from PD secretary Elly Schlein, who in an interview with La Stampa described the empty beaches as “the Meloni government's postcard”.

 “Millions of Italians are giving up their holidays because they cannot afford them and also because they fear what will happen in September. If I were the prime minister, I would ask myself some questions, but I see that she prefers to orchestrate, through a militarised RAI, propaganda that does not correspond to the real country. Yet the situation is coming to light, Italians have understood,” the Democratic Party leader insisted.

 Meloni chose to respond directly with a post on social media: “In recent days, among various statements, PD secretary Elly Schlein also suggested that Italian tourism was in crisis. It's a shame that, a few hours after her statement, official data from the Interior Ministry – taken from the State Police's ‘Alloggiati web’ database – confirmed the exact opposite, with arrivals on the rise and millions of visitors to our accommodation facilities,” she claims.

 She then goes on the counterattack: “The numbers and the truth respond to the fabrications and falsehoods concocted at the table. Those who truly love their country do not discredit it in front of the world for political convenience. We will continue to work to make it stronger, more attractive and prouder of itself every day,” he concludes.

 But Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini also says: “Salaries are an issue.” It was not centre-left politicians who reported a decline in visitor numbers since last year, but the beach resort unions themselves. They attribute the reason to the lack of wage growth, although – it should be noted – the data are not yet definitive and the decline can also be explained by the record number of visitors recorded in 2024 (driven mainly by foreign arrivals). “The high cost of living – bills, rents, fuel, mortgages, food – directly affects families’ purchasing power. Even with two salaries, many struggle to make ends meet. In these conditions, it is natural that the first expenses to be reduced are those for leisure, entertainment and holidays,” said Fabrizio Licordari, president of Assobalneari, a few days ago.

 And even Salvini, when asked about the issue, far from denying the crisis, emphasised the same point: “I wouldn't blame the workers of the sea so much as the salaries of Italians, which for too many years have not been adequate for the cost of living. The issue of middle-class salaries is a real issue that the government must also address. Once upon a time, with €60,000 a year, you were a gentleman. Now it's not a problem to have a sunbed or umbrella in Forte dei Marmi, the problem is the mortgage.”

 Schlein responded by citing the figures: “The beach resort union has reported a 15% drop in visitor numbers, and Altroconsumo [a political consumer organisation] has analysed a 34% increase in costs. Instead of responding to me, Giorgia Meloni should respond to those Italian families whose wages are too low to go on holiday, while her government blocks the adoption of a minimum wage and does nothing to combat the most expensive utility bills in Europe,” she told the AdnKronos news agency.

 Shortly afterwards, M5S leader Giuseppe Conte also commented on the prime minister's words: “Meloni, straight from Mars, said a little while ago that everything is fine with holidays. While prices are rising across the board, tax pressure is increasing and real household income is falling, the president is only concerned with increasing reimbursements to a few ministers and undersecretaries and covering the arms lobby with billions. After more than a thousand days in government, she has no solution: only no to everything, from the minimum wage to the measures against the high cost of living that we have proposed. And then the usual recipe: victimhood and Calimero's shell,” he writes on social media.

 PD economic spokesperson Antonio Misiani also weighed in saying, “clearly, the prime minister's holiday in Greece has further accentuated her detachment from Italian reality. Only in North Korea are those who, based on objectively negative data, press the government and ask it to abandon propaganda in order to tackle problems in a concrete manner accused of discrediting the nation,” he said. “The point is not whether there are more foreign arrivals in some luxury tourist resorts: the point is that millions of Italian families, due to the collapse in purchasing power, can no longer afford holidays, and that entire regions are recording declines in tourist numbers and spending, as reported by many trade associations and admitted, half-heartedly, even by some members of the right-wing majority,” he continues. “In the face of these facts, Giorgia Meloni's triumphalist propaganda seems surreal.”

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