Brussels, 28/10/2010 (Agence Europe) - Bottom of the class for waste management, Italy has again been singled out by the European Commission for non-respect of legislation governing this area but this time with the threat of a steep financial sanction. There has been talk of a lump sum fine corresponding to no less than €21,000 a day, or even of a daily penalty payment of €195,840 if Italy waits for a second ruling from the European Court of Justice to comply.
Although the second waste crisis in Campania is being closely monitored by the Commission (EUROPE 10243), the Italian authorities are being taken to the European Court of Justice for a second time for non-compliance with a ruling from the European Court of Justice in 2004 with regard to two landfill sites for industrial waste in Lombardy, in the north of the country. The decision was taken on Thursday 28 October, during the monthly salvo of infringement procedures.
The Commission is taking Italy to task for still having failed to take appropriate measures to ensure that the two landfill sites in Rodano and Pioltello comply with Directive 2006/12/EC, which requires that member states proceed with waste disposal measures that do not put human health in danger or harm the environment. Moreover, the landfill sites cited in legal procedures have been recognised as a threat to human health and the environment since 1986. They also represent a threat to air quality. Emergency measures taken in 1999 to prevent contamination of the local water table are seen as having been totally cosmetic.
In September 2004, the European Court of Justice ruled against Italy for infringing the directive in three cases of landfills based on a former chemical factory site. One of these landfills has been subsequently cleaned up. For the two others, however, everything or almost everything still needs to be done. In one of the landfills, most of the waste still needs to be removed and in the other, the cleaning up exercise has just begun.
The Italian authorities foresee the completion of the work by March 2011 at the earliest. This explains why the Commission has decided to proceed with infringement procedures, at the request of the commissioner for the environment, Janez Potoènik.
The second submission to the European Court of Justice will enable the Commission, under Article 160 of the Treaty, to request financial penalties. If the Commission resorts to this facility, it will request that the European Court of Justice imposes a financial penalty on the Italian authorities of €195,840 a day as from the date of the second ruling it makes, until the country decides to respect the decision. The daily penalty of €21,420 requested at the same time, will be applied on a daily basis from the end of the first ruling to the beginning of the second. The Commission is hoping that this kind of action will be enough to make Italy comply with the first ruling of the European Court of Justice, as soon as possible (A.N./transl.fl).