Istrian Democratic Party (IDS) whip Emil Daus said on Thursday that he would call for the Maritime Domain and Seaports Bill to be withdrawn from the parliamentary procedure and a new one to be prepared to prevent any future possibility of banning members of public to enter beaches.

Speaking to reporters ahead of a discussion on the said bill, to be held on Friday by the parliamentary committees on maritime affairs, transport and infrastructure, Daus said that the IDS had been fighting for years for the protection of public space because space, along with people, was the most important national resource. The proposed bill does not ensure that, he added.

“There are too many professional opinions that this bill is not good, and tomorrow we will not only vote against it but will ask the parliament speaker to withdraw it, and align it with the Constitution and other acts to remove any ambiguous articles. We will ask that the bill be put to public consultation again, that the public at large is involved in the consultation and that it is submitted to parliament only after a consensus on it is reached,” said Daus.

He explained that he found the bill unclear and that the IDS feared it would jeopardize the public good.

The bill contains interpretations linking beaches alongside hotels and camping sites with those complexes so that in a few years’ time one might start to apply it in a way that would harm the public good, he said.

“Why would families that have visited a certain beach for decades now have difficulty accessing it,” he said.

“That the bill says that there will be no fences does not mean that there will not be any security guards at the entrance to a beach who will ban people from entering it,” he said, adding that the original problem was that there was no information on the extent of the maritime domain belt because it was never surveyed or entered in cadastral and land books.