BRUSSELS (AFP) — The European Commission is poised to sue Italy before an EU court for failing to resolve a rubbish collection crisis in the Naples region, an EU source said Tuesday.
Measures proposed by the government to tackle the situation were "insufficient" or "not satisfying," according to the source, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"The management plan is not satisfying because it lacks sites for treating waste, no adequate stocking site is foreseen and nothing is planned for sorting rubbish," the official said.
As a result, the commission would decide at a Tuesday May 6 meeting to ask the European Court of Justice to order Italian authorities to take action or face fines, the source said.
The rubbish crisis, which has dragged on for the last 14 years, has long fuelled tensions between Brussels and Rome, which are already soaring currently over Italian efforts to rescue ailing airline Alitalia.
The European Commission already threatened in January to bring a case against Italy over the crisis at the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice.
The court ruled earlier this month that authorities were not doing enough to tackle the crisis, which has seen mounds of rubbish gather in Naples and the surrounding Campania region in recent months as landfills reach capacity.
Many of the landfills in Campania are controlled by the regional Camorra mafia, who make a lucrative business out of subverting waste-handling procedures and shipping in industrial waste from the north.
Prime minister-elect Silvio Berlusconi vowed during his recent campaign to hold his first cabinet meeting in Naples and keep working on the rubbish crisis until it gets resolved.
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