British Union flag fly alonside the Italian flag on poles on the beaches of Genoa | Luca Zennaro/EPA Businesses along Italian coast raise Union Jack in EU protest EU law threatens to open a quintessentially Italian beach business up to multinational competition.

Beach businesses along the Italian Riviera are flying the Union Jack to protest EU laws that would open them up to competition from around the world.

“We’re all British," a group of some 1,500 businesses said in a joint statement Wednesday, according to the Ligurian newspaper Il Secolo XIX. "We’re all against Brussels technocrats who want to destroy an entire category of business owners.”

Three weeks ago, the European Court of Justice quashed Italy’s last hope of shielding its beaches from EU competition laws.

A 2006 law, which Italy has yet to comply with, requires international bidding for most services, including the family-owned beach concessions dotting the country’s coastline. Many businesses along Italy’s private beaches have been passed down for generations within the same families as the concessions could be renewed for as long as the owner wanted it.

Business owners and locals now fear that they could lose their beaches to large multinational companies, after the EU's top court last month dismissed Rome's decision to grant an automatic extension to 2020.

Underlying that concern is the touchier, more emotional worry that foreigners will take over a quintessentially Italian industry, which prompted business owners to raise the British flag on Wednesday in protest along the eastern coast, from the southern tip of the Liguria region up to the border with France.

“We, like the British, want Europe to change pace,” beach business owner Riccardo Borgo told Il Secolo. “Otherwise, ideally, we’ll leave with the door slamming.”