PRESS RELEASE No. 37/02
25 April 2002
Judgment of the Court of Justice in Case C-396/00
Commission v Italy
THE COURT OF JUSTICE DECLARES THAT ITALY HAS FAILED TO FULFIL ITS OBLIGATIONS
UNDER THE DIRECTIVE ON URBAN WASTE WATER, BECAUSE DISCHARGES FROM MILAN ARE
RELEASED INTO SENSITIVE AREAS, WITHOUT BEING SUBJECTED TO SPECIFIC TREATMENT
Italian Decree-Law No 152 of 1999 identifies as sensitive areas inter alia
the delta of the River Po and the north-west coast of the Adriatic Sea, from
the mouth of the Adige to Pesaro, and the water-courses which flow into them
over a distance of 10 kilometres from the coast.
The city of Milan does not have a waste water treatment plant, and the waste
from the 2.7 million people living there is discharged without prior treatment
into the Lambro-Olona river system, and then into the River Po, which flows
into an area of the Adriatic which is very polluted and subject to eutrophication.
The Italian Government asked for a state of emergency to be declared, to allow
for the adoption of a simplified procedure to enable the city of Milan to proceed
rapidly with the construction of the three planned treatment plants.
According to the Commission, all urban waste water which reaches - directly
or indirectly - sensitive areas had to be treated using the more stringent method
by 31 December 1998 at the latest. The Italian Government, however, argued that
the city of Milan is not in any of the sensitive areas identified directly by
the Decree or designated as such by the Lombardy region.
In its judgment today, the Court of Justice, declares that it makes no
difference in this regard whether the waste water discharges directly
or indirectly into a sensitive area: the directive makes no distinction
between direct and indirect discharges into sensitive areas.
The Court of Justice bases itself on the EC Treaty, which provides
that Community policy on the environment is to aim at a high level of protection,
and the objective of the directive, which is the protection of the environment:
that objective would be undermined if only waste water which discharges directly
into a sensitive area had to be made subject to more stringent treatment.
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