As the ‘battle of the sunshades’ lurched like a drunkard on the sands, Portugal’s minister for environment and energy has appeared to clarify all doubts.
She did so by effortlessly creating a new ‘requirement’ for the nation’s beaches: ‘security strips’.
Up until now, the controversy was between ‘concession areas’ and ‘non-concession areas’ (which we now know must take up ⅔ of any beach, and can, in theory mean beachgoers set up their sunshades ‘in front of concession areas’ – a prospect that has irritated concession holders immensely).
Thus, with no apparent difficulty at all, Maria da Graça Carvalho – arriving in the Algarve flanked by dignitaries on Friday – presented ‘the solution’: security strips – areas of the beach where reasons of security demand that there can be no sunshades.
These strips, beachgoers are almost certain to find, will be sited in front of concession areas – ensuring that people who pay for the luxury of a sunlounger under a rattan (or other form of) shade, continue to have an unblocked view of the water.
It won’t be the government that defines these security strips, Minister Carvalho told the battalion of upturned microphones. It will be the municipal authorities of the area, in conjunction with Maritime Police.
To make matters as unequivocal as possible, Minister Carvalho suggested every municipality should create a ‘simple diagram’ to be displayed at the entrance to beaches, showing people where they can set up their sunshades; where they can pay to sit under a sunshade, and where they must not linger, in order to respect a ‘security strip’.
“Mayors should check” whether the signs already in place on beaches in their municipalities are “correct”, or if they need changing, she added. “It is not a systematic thing. The law hasn’t changed, and I am convinced that most of the signage is fine and complies with the law, because the last rule clarifying this is from 2012, 14 years ago.”
When all is said and done, the apparently illuminating announcement made by APA last month has all but faded into a blur of bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo. Signs may be changed (or not), but people will still be gently dissuaded from ‘pitching camp’ in front of concession areas.
As the minister pointed out, ‘the law hasn’t changed’. In fact, as APA said initially: “there is no law…” referring to legislation that “can impede the erecting of a sunshade in front of concessions”. But that was before the ‘security strips’ came into the picture (or, perhaps, the diagram…)
