Italy slammed by EU court over Naples garbage

(LUXEMBOURG) - Europe's highest court on Thursday slammed Italy for its failure to clean-up a garbage crisis in the Naples region that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi declared over more than 18 months ago.

"Italy has not adopted all the measures necessary for the disposal of waste in the region of Campania," the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice said following European Commission action launched in the wake of a 2007 crisis.

Rome blamed contractual breaches and mafia interference, but the court said not even "the presence of criminal activity" could justify "both the failure to fulfil obligations" or "the failure to have the requisite facilities up and running on time."

The court said that, when the deadline set expired, "the waste littering the public roads totalled 55,000 tonnes; 110,000 tonnes to 120,000 tonnes of waste lay in municipal storage sites awaiting treatment; and the exasperated local inhabitants had started fires in the piles of refuse."

According to a statement, judges concluded that "by failing to establish an adequate and integrated network of installations for the recovery and disposal of waste, as close as possible to the place where that waste is produced," Italy failed to remove "danger to human health and damage to the environment."

Speaking in Naples in July 2008, Berlusconi said the "dramatic phase" of the crisis was over after tens of thousands of tonnes of untreated waste piled up in the area ahead of that year's general election. Berlusconi made finding a solution a key plank of his winning campaign.

The long-running issue was blamed on a lack of local incinerators, and landfill sites controlled by the local branch of the Mafia, the Camorra, some of which were used for illegal dumping of toxic waste.

Naples and the surrounding region had long been placed under a state of emergency due to the garbage problems.

Judgement of the European Court of Justice in Case C-297/08 - Commission v Italy