Brussels, 24/10/2012 (Agence Europe) - For failing to clean up 255 illegal and unsupervised landfills, Italy is to be taken before the Court of Justice and will receive very heavy penalties if it continues not to comply with the 2007 Court ruling, the European Commission announced on Wednesday 24 October. The Commission has decided to refer Italy back to the Court of Justice and is requesting a lump sum fine of €56 million (€28,089.60 per day between Court cases) and a daily penalty payment of €256,819.20 for each day after the second Court ruling until the infringement ends, i.e. until Rome comes into line with Directive 99/31/EC on waste disposal.
Despite progress made, there are still problems in nearly all Italian regions. Despite commitments made by the Italian authorities to correct the situation, only 31 of the problematic landfills are scheduled to be cleaned up by the end of 2012. Also, the Commission has not received a full timetable of work to be accomplished for 132 landfills, and so far does not have any information proving that Italy has set in place an adequate system of surveillance to prevent more illegal landfill sites from springing up. (AN/transl.jl)