Italy's trash woes deepened on Thursday when the European Court of Justice condemned Italy for failing to apply European Union rules in the management of its landfills.
The ruling, which applied to the previous, Silvio Berlusconi government (2001-2006), came as the current administration still struggled to clear up a trash emergency in Naples which has been going on for months.
Thursday's case concerned Italy's failure to apply a 1999 EU directive on landfills designed to limit as far as possible their negative effects on the environment.
EU countries were given until 2001 to bring in the new rules but Italy did not comply until 2003, meaning that new landfills in the intervening period were not treated according to the stricter regulations, the court said.
It also complained that the legislation finally adopted in 2003 did not comply with all articles of the EU directive including those concerning costs, the treatment of hazardous waste and the setting up of a ''national strategy'' aimed at reducing the amount of waste going into landfills.
The court said it sent Italy a formal notice in 2004 expressing its doubts and decided to bring action in February 2006 because it was not satisfied with its explanations.
In its closing declaration, the court said Italy had ''failed to fulfill its obligations'' and ordered it to pay all court costs.
Members of the outgoing centre-left government said that Berlusconi, who is hoping to return to power in Italy's weekend election, was to blame for the ruling.
Leftist Senator Loredana De Petris said that ''this is all Berlusconi's fault. The case was brought against Italy while he was in power''.
Berlusconi, meanwhile, has repeatedly blasted the outgoing government for its handling of the Naples rubbish crisis, blaming local centre-left administrators for the disaster.
Images of mountains of rubbish rotting in the streets of Naples travelled the globe, causing intense embarrassment for the government and damaging the city's tourist industry.
In January, the European Commission blamed a succession of governments for the situation and said it was ready to take legal steps against Italy including fines.
In a speech to the European Parliament, European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said ''the continual violations'' of European environmental norms in Campania, the region around Naples, ''must stop''.
Dimas noted that Italy had been repeatedly convicted by the European Court of Justice for breaking health and environmental norms.
He stressed that years of illegal waste disposal posed untold risks for the environment and public health.
''What we are witnessing in these days in Naples is not a crisis that has come out of the blue,'' the commissioner said, pointing to ''the culmination of a more-than-14 year process'' in which EU norms had been flouted.
The commissioner said that the four-month plan unveiled by outgoing Premier Romano Prodi on January 8 should be implemented ''immediately''.
The government's plan, which included the appointment of a 'trash tsar', has already hit some bumps with the refusal of many Italian regions to take Campania's waste and health concerns keeping school children at home.
There have also been continued protests at dumps earmarked to take the rubbish.
The Camorra, the Neapolitan version of the Mafia, is known to have turned rubbish disposal into a massively profitable business.
The crime syndicate has helped derail efforts to build hi-tech incinerators so that Naples must rely on dumps and landfills.
Millions of tonnes of industrial and domestic waste have been dumped illegally in the Campania countryside and in the sea, including untreated, hazardous waste.
Some scientists have linked the problem with the higher-than-average cancer rates reported in some parts of Campania.
