The rubbish crisis in Naples, where heaps of toxic and foul-smelling waste have been left rotting in the streets since Christmas, is heading for the courts after the European Commission announced yesterday that it was taking Italy to the European Court of Justice.

Italy’s Prime Minister-elect, Silvio Berlusconi, responded by promising decisive action to resolve the emergency and avoid EU fines. The developments came as barricades and protests returned to the streets of Naples, amid public fury over the crisis. Firemen have been called out to dozens of fires over the past few days as desperate residents burn the rubbish mountains, which are a growing health risk as warmer weather arrives.

Some rubbish has been cleared by the Italian army. But nearly six months on, most of the great heaps of split plastic bags and dustbin liners remain, and so does the stench, with residents covering their faces with handkerchiefs as smoke rises from the festering, burning mounds.

Three landfill sites have been reopened but are already full, and the Campania region’s first new incinerator is not due to begin working until next year. Suburbs where the authorities are trying to reopen other dumps look like war zones, with barricades of overturned rubbish bins, corrugated iron and tyres, manned by menacing young men.

In the run-up to last month’s election campaign Mr Berlusconi blamed the outgoing centre-left Government of Romano Prodi for a disaster that had “damaged the image of Italy in the world”. He promised to hold his first Cabinet meeting in Naples. “This is my problem now,” he said yesterday. About 1,400 tonnes of rubbish is still rotting on the streets of Naples and its suburbs.

President Napolitano is expected to ask Mr Berlusconi today to form a government after his centre-right alliance won a sweeping victory in the general election.

Three months ago Mr Prodi appointed Gianni De Gennaro, Italy’s former police chief, as “extraordinary commissioner” with a brief to find alternative landfills. Mr De Gennaro has identified Chiaiano, in the northern suburbs of Naples, as a landfill site able to take 700,000 tonnes of rubbish. But it will not be ready for two months, and residents have vowed to block rubbish trucks with barricades, fearing that the site will be a health risk. Yesterday they occupied the proposed site and hijacked buses to block streets.

The decision by Brussels to take court action could lead to heavy fines.

A Commission official said: “We are taking Italy to court over its handling of the waste management crisis in the Campania region. We note that proposals are being made by Italy to improve the situation, but on the basis of the timetable given, the Commission is not convinced that this issue will be solved quickly enough”.

The crisis is blamed on overflowing landfill sites controlled by the Camorra, the Naples mafia, which is accused of sabotaging incinerator projects and poisoning the environment through untreated waste to the point where some forms of cancer in the region are three times the national average.

Stavros Dimas, the EU Environment Commissioner, said the Italian plans were unsatisfactory “because they lack sites for treating waste . . . and nothing is planned for sorting rubbish. The implication of organised crime must not conceal the most direct cause, an absence of action and an absence of political will”.

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