Polluter pays, not the owner? not responsible!

Accordingly, whereas one line of authority — based, inter alia, on the precautionary principle, the principle that preventive action should be taken and the ‘polluter pays’ principle, all of which are specific to EU law — considers the owner to be under an obligation to adopt emergency safety measures and rehabilitation measures even where that owner is not the polluter, other Italian courts rule out the possibility that owners not responsible for the pollution should incur any liability and, consequently, refuse to accept that the administrative authorities are competent to require such owners to adopt those measures. The plenary assembly of the Consiglio di Stato takes the latter view, which marks the prevalent approach in Italian administrative case-law and referred the question for a preliminary ruling [ art . 267 TFEU ] to the European Court , on 10/10/2013 .

as it is established the Judgment of the Court, III Chamber of Cour de Justice des Communautes Europeennes who say “…on environmental liability with regard to the prevention and remedying of environmental damage must be interpreted as not precluding national legislation such as that at issue in the main proceedings, which, in cases where it is impossible to identify the polluter of a plot of land or to have that person adopt remedial measures, DOES NOT permit the competent authority to require the owner of the land (who is not responsible for the pollution) to adopt preventive and remedial measures, that person being required merely to reimburse the costs relating to the measures undertaken by the competent authority within the limit of the market value of the site, determined after those measures have been carried out.”