Slovakia in this century has been characterized by frequent and extensive socioeconomic and political changes which have had an unfavorable impact on all aspects of the environment. Wasteful exploitation of natural resources, extensive pollution of the air, water and land, release of contaminants into the environment and the food-chain, ill-advised intrusions on the countryside, the accumulation of waste, and the distorted structure of the Slovak economy, (with its outdated technology and infrastructure) have combined to bring about a comprehensive deterioration in the state of the country's environment, with various degrees of devastation and risk in different regions.
As a result of the economic downturn, industrial production has declined, which had positive effects on the environment, especially air pollution. Slovakia has reduced the emission of SO2 by 58% compared to the year 1980, however, it still produces approximately 325,000 tons of sulfur dioxide per year, mostly generated by heating and power plants. Energy production, including heating, accounts for 64% of the total emission of pollutants into the atmosphere, and vehicle traffic contributes 19.5%.
Pollution of surface and ground water is an extensive problem and in 16 districts it produces a deficit in drinking water.
Under the previous regime, the waste management system in Slovakia was generally uncontrolled. Only 5% of recorded landfills were licensed. In most landfills, different categories of waste were tipped together (hazardous, special, etc.). According to the Waste Act 238/1991, waste generators are responsible for waste management and municipalities are responsible for municipal waste. This act and subsequent legislation also defines duties for both generators and state administrative agencies responsible for waste management. The Waste Act allows a 5-year period until 31 July 1996 to meet waste management requirements. The current status and development of the economy do not indicate that this deadline will be met, therefore the fixed deadline has been postponed to the year 2000. This amendment has passed as Act 255/1993. The Ministry of the Environment prepared and the government approved the Waste Management Program of the Slovak Republic, which defines targets and measures for short-, medium- and long-term periods to the year 2005.
This state of the environment is reflected in the health and quality of life of the nation. Perhaps as a consequence of this, the average life expectancy is 5 - 7 years less than in developed countries. The government aims to keep the sustainable development principle and considers economic, environmental and social problems as mutually related issues.
The main responsibilities of the MoE are execution of the state administration in the protection of the main elements of the environment (nature, landscape, air, water, waste):
The Constitution of the Slovak Republic of 1 September 1992 lays down the right of each citizen to get early and complete information on the status of the environment, and its likely causes and consequences. Most information on the environment is collected, processed, stored and disseminated by the Ministry of the Environment through the Environmental Information System. There are four main groups of users:
Most of the participants in EIS are both users and a source of information. The basic sources of data come from the component monitoring system at all levels of monitoring activities - national, regional and special projects. Monitoring covers most important components including atmosphere, water, soil, biota, forest ecosystems, geological factors, radiation and other physical fields, waste, land use, settlement, and contaminants of the food chain.
Even if they have a regional character, NGOs are key actors in raising public environmental awareness in municipalities. At present, there are more than one hundred of them (including the regional offices of the largest NGO, the Slovak Union of Nature and Landscape Protectionists) and the Ministry has good contacts with many.
These priorities have a general character and are not expected to be changed in the near future.
A recently adopted priority related to the ongoing privatization process is the inclusion of an environmental audit in the privatization procedure (see 2.3). Unfortunately, this issue is not considered by other sectors as a matter of great importance, and the environmental audit is not yet considered when assessing advantages of specific privatization projects. The most touchy problem is the question of how to assess environmental liability and future responsibility, factoring it into the price of the enterprise, and the tools for controlling environmental commitments at newly-owned enterprise.
State environmental policy is focused on improving environmental quality, protecting human health, promoting the rational use of natural resources, and applying principles of prudence and recompense for damage to the environment.
This year, the Strategy, Principles and Priorities of the State Governmental Environmental Policy are being worked out at the regional level in 38 district environmental offices, for the purposes of local needs and for NEAP preparation.
Divisions of MoE have close relations with specific organizations and institutions and cooperate on many specific projects (Waste management - Slovak Technical University, Faculty of Chemical Technology, Nature protection - University of Commenius, Department of Landscape Ecology).
The most active NGO is SZOPK - Union of Nature and Land Protectionists, which has the signed a contract on cooperation with the MoE. Since then, the number of SZOPK's members has increased, and many new environmental NGOs have emerged. SZOPK's goals are to further increase public environmental awareness of both short-term and long-term development solutions, and to influence decision making.
Activities and projects of SZOPK are divided into several areas:
Activities of another NGO - Tree of Life (Strom Zivota) are focused on small-scale projects like protection and conservation of small cultural, nature and landscape sites, with public non-profit participation, information dissemination and social activities.
A first step in this field was the inclusion of environmental considerations in the privatization process: each privatization project, submitted for the second wave of privatization, needs to include an environmental section.
A second step was the 1 June 1994 adoption of Act Nr.127/1994 on Environmental Impact Assessment, Act Nr.287/1994 on Nature and Landscape Protection. Before 1994, new acts on air protection, and waste management were adopted, and the acts on charges were revised.
Unfortunately, the tax system in Slovakia does not yet specify environmental taxes, and environmental revenues are based solely on environmental charges, penalties and fees.
Documents from the Rio Conference, the Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the Convention on Biodiversity Protection were the framework for the Principles of Landscape Development, Waste Management Program, and the Proposal for Implementation of the Monitoring and Information System in the Slovak Republic.
Strategic papers on the environment are prepared in cooperation with the state administration in all concerned sectors, NGOs and the Union of Municipalities of Slovakia.
All subordinate bodies involved in policy making, preparation and implementation of environmental strategy, are financed from the budget of the MoE.
The MoE deals with environmental investments financed from its budget. Investments from other sources, especially financed from foreign sources, are subject to government consultation.
The MoE supports investments and projects which have a large impact on the whole territory of Slovakia through the State Environmental Fund. The accumulation of different sources of funding (municipal, private, commercial, etc.) is a very progressive approach. At present, support is usually applied to small and medium-scale investments and mostly in waste water treatment plants (as the main priority is to protect human health through waste water treatment projects to improve the drinking water supply in regions facing water shortages, or in regions with poor quality ground water.
The MoE also participates in the preparatory phase of environmental investments by assisting the investor in project preparation involving other ministries (e.g. Ministry of Economy for the incinerator plant for hazardous waste in _a_a, or Ministry of Soil Management.)
Finally, the document "Strategy, Principles and Priorities of the Governmental Environmental Policy" has been worked out by each district according to local needs and conditions. District strategies should be approved by the end of July 1995. An important component of this document will be the list of projects essential for environmental improvement in the region, including deadlines and realistic financial needs. These materials will form the basis for the preparation of an investment paragraph in the NEAP.
Some projects of environmental importance are financed from the budgets of the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Soil Management and the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Public Works; these must meet all environmental standards, including the preparation of an Environmental Impact Assessment before the beginning of the project.
Another achievement has been the integration of the PHARE Program's Project Implementation Unit into the MoE's Department of Environmental Project Implementation. Although PHARE only finances non-investment projects, some are very supportive for environmental investments of other sectors (the incineration plant in _a_a, for example).
The main problem with environmental investments is the question of guarantees. Environmental investments are generally less profitable and attractive for foreign investors, and are considered long term. That is why most foreign assistance loans require governmental guarantees, often up to 1.5 to 2 times the size of the loan. Because Slovakia has a tight state budget, a young banking sector, and has not been able to recover all past environmental damages, it is obvious that the government simply cannot afford to play the role of general guarantor.
A second important step is the process of harmonizing Slovak legislation with that of the EU. Several significant acts on air, waste and nature protection, and the Act on Environmental Impact Assessment (Nr. 127/1994), have been adopted. New Acts on water protection and ozone layer protection are under preparation.
In the period 1990 -1994, the Ministry of the Environment build up an efficient administrative network for environmental issues (see Figure 1.). The Slovak Environmental Agency was established with offices in all of Slovakia's larger cities. The MoE itself was recently restructured to improve its ability to respond to environmental and managerial needs. However, Slovakia is restructuring its territorial administration and one effect may be the integration of the district environmental offices with municipal administrations.
Environmental investments are a very sensitive issue in environmental protection policy. The main cause of this situation is the lack of financial resources and the difficulty of getting loans from international financial institutions. The existing State Environmental Fund, with its limited finances, cannot serve as the main financial institution for environmental investments. Its transformation into a revolving fund appears to be the highest priority in environmental investments planning.
The Slovak Environmental Agency, as the professional body of the MoE, should closely cooperate with local NGOs. However, this cooperation has been limited, and the Agency should be restructured in the near future in order to address this shortcoming.
According to Resolution 619 of September 1993, the Slovak Government assigns all ministers to create within their purview the conditions for achieving the objectives of the national environmental policy, and to include its short-term objectives in the relevant plans and resolutions of ministries. On this basis, cooperation between the Ministry of the Environment and the other ministries has become enshrined in Slovakia's official institutional framework.
The implementation of the strategy is also subject to the following economic factors:
An integrated approach towards economic and environmental issues should be one of the main principles guiding the preparation of the NEAP. The framework was established by the Program Declaration of the Government by the end of 1994, and the elaboration of the NEAP could serve to further genuine cooperation in the environmental field.