PALERMO, Sicily (CN) — Italy was hit with millions of dollars in fines on Thursday for failing to upgrade wastewater treatment facilities in Sicily and one near Mont Blanc years after it was ordered to do so by the European Union’s high court.
The European Court of Justice slapped Italy with a 10-million-euro ($10.8 million) fine and ordered it to pay 13.6 million euros ($14.6 million) for every six months of delay in completing the upgrades.
Italy has long struggled to modernize aging and out-of-date infrastructure across the country and Thursday’s fines underscored how slow that work has been in places.
Italy’s environmental ministry did not reply to a query from Courthouse News about the court order.
In 2014, the Court of Justice ruled Italy had failed to comply with EU environmental rules passed in 1991 requiring municipalities to do a better job of purifying wastewater. In 2014, the court said 41 treatment systems across Italy fell foul of the EU rules.
In 2021, the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, sued Italy because five of those treatment systems remained out of compliance. Thursday’s fines came down because four of those five municipal systems were still not where they should be.
Four towns in Sicily — Castellammare del Golfo, Cinisi, Terrasini and Trappeto — and Courmayeur at the foot of Mont Blanc were in violation of EU rules. The four Sicilian towns are located in a built-up area along the scenic and touristy Gulf of Castellammare west of Palermo, the Sicilian capital.
In court documents, Italian officials said work to upgrade the treatment systems along the Gulf of Castellammare is scheduled to be completed by 2027. Italy said the work in Courmayeur was completed by 2023.
The court noted four of the five municipalities remained out of compliance and it faulted Italy for an “excessive length of time” in modernizing its treatment systems.
The court said the “lack of treatment of urban waste water constitutes damage to the environment and must be regarded as particularly serious.”
Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.