Brussels, 12/01/2011 (Agence Europe) - The Italian authorities will soon receive a letter from the European Commission demanding that they notify the Commission at their earliest convenience of a waste management plan for the burgeoning waste problem in the Campania region. On Wednesday, Joe Hennon, the spokesperson for Environment Commissioner Janez Potoènik confirmed to EUROPE that this letter would be directly delivered to the Italian ambassador at Coreper in the next few days.
The analysis of the report made by the experts who were sent to the region at the end of November to assess the second garbage crisis (EUROPE 10265) is categorical: measures required for executing the ruling of the European Court of Justice made in March 2010 which condemned Italy for not respecting the European waste management directive (Directive 2006/12/EC, C-297/08) have still not been implemented, and the situation is unacceptable. The threat of a second European Court of Justice case was made on 26 November by the Commission but nothing has changed. Janez Potoènik could possibly visit the region in February or March.
The spokesperson hammered home the fact that the letter sums up this assessment and advocates that they want a credible plan to be established soon. He also said that they wanted to know how the competent authorities intended to manage waste produced on a daily basis, as well as the backlog: 18,000,000 tonnes stored in depots and which could be sent elsewhere for processing, as proposed by certain regions.
The management plan expected by the European Commission should be detailed and comprehensive because so far the Commission has nothing other than a few basic details in the plan provided last October. Its assessment will be made with the assistance of an external consultant and will take a few weeks.
The letter to the Italian authorities will not include a cut-off date, for the time being, explained the spokesperson. However, Hennon said that they regarded this as an emergency situation because no progress had been made for three years. (A.N./transl.fl)