Brussels, 06/11/2014 (Agence Europe) - The Court of Justice of the EU (ruling in case C-385/13P) upheld the judgment of the EU General Court (see EUROPE 10831) that found in favour of the European Commission in not authorising payment to Italy of financial aid from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) in respect of waste management and disposal in Campania.
The Court rejected all of Italy's arguments. In its appeal, Italy criticised the General Court's reliance on a simple comparison between the matters covered by the infringement procedure and those covered by the measure to be funded by the ERDF, which would be tantamount to finding a partial correspondence between the situation of the infringement and the measure to be financed to be sufficient for that comparison. Italy argued instead that the comparison should have been made with the specific operations by which the measure is actually implemented. The General Court had taken the view that the notion of “measure” was broader than that of “operation”, which was compatible with the regulation.
In this case, the infringement was Italy's failure to ensure (waste directive, 2006/12/EC) that, in Campania, waste is disposed of without endangering human health and without harming the environment. In a ruling delivered in 2010 (case C-297/08), the Court confirmed that Italy had breached the said directive. The measure to be financed corresponds to repayment, under the ERDF, of expenditure incurred in connection with the regional waste collection and recycling system, which was also the subject of the Commission's infringement procedure.
The Court of Justice declared that the General Court was correct to compare the matters covered by the infringement procedure initiated by the Commission with the matters covered by the ERDF measure and that it thus was justified in confirming that the Commission had established a sufficiently direct link between the infringement procedure and the matters covered by the ERDF payment applications declared inadmissible. On the one hand, the infringement procedure concerned the entirety of the system governing waste management and disposal in Campania, including waste recovery and the lack of effectiveness of the differentiated collection. On the other hand, the assistance that would have been covered by the measure at issue included the aid for the establishment of a differentiated municipal waste collection system, the recovery of downstream waste and the establishment of landfills. (JK)