How is it breaking new legal ground, if toll roads already exist and are legal and overnight stay tax (aka tourist tax) is too?

Going to the German island of Norderney also costs a fee. Not sure the ferry, but you also pay a certain amount of money per Day. It's called Kurtaxe and it's quite similar to the proposed fee

I get your point, but this is not about your rights as an EU citizen. I am an Italian citizen and I also have to pay, we are getting the same treatment.

not the ideal place to bring up freedom of movement. Better to fight for it in other matters. For example border checks between Austria and Bavaria that have been going on for years now.

This absolutely does not violate the EU's guarantee of freedom of movement for citizens. You're conflating your intuition about how that works ("as an EU citizen i have the right to access any and all public spaces without restriction") with what it actually means (EU member states must treat citizens of other EU member states the same way they treat their own citizens wrt entrance, access to employment, taxation and access to government services).

I think, like you, that what they're doing sucks. I think it sucks less than the alternative, which is that the city become nearly uninhabitable to long term residents due to the tourism crush. But this absolutely isn't a freedom of movement issue and to call it one makes you sound like Americans who think that getting banned from Facebook violates their free speech.

Not everything is always a slippery slope argument...Also good luck enforcing this in any other city. This only works in venice because there are only a few ways to get in. To do that in lets say nice you would need to fortify the city...That will just not happen.

Only a small number of countries have full freedom of movement within their own borders (freedom to roam) and Sweden is one of them (allemansrätten) but plenty of other countries don't. EU freedom of movement only means you can cross borders between EU countries (with related rights for employment, market access, etc). Where you can go within is decided by each country.

Freedom of movement only applies if the restriction on entry is different between nations. If everyone needs to pay the fee, then it is hard to argue that this is restricting your rights.

The thing is you pay a tourist tax if you stay in the city itself already.

The fee will be imposed also on Italian citizens, so doesn't impact at all the right to free movement inside the EU.

But how do you even enforce it?

It's fair. Have you seen how swamped they get by tourists some days?

It's mainly for cruises, if I have to guess.

I don't really care about the fee, but the damage is done isn't it? How many natives still live there who aren't directly involved in the tourism industry?

At least in Germany they always are attached to overnight stays afaik

I'm not sure how you'd enforce such a fee generally except for cities like Venice that get a lot of visitors by cruise ship

Yeah, but this is definitely an attempt to get some money from them. Cruise ships are the worst when it comes to providing tourism dollars.