In the second half of the last decade environmental NGOs were playing an active political role in preparation for the democratic turn. In fact, opposition groups were in environmental disguise: as environment became the only issue where dissident opinions could be voiced without considerable risk, all opposition started to gather under its banner. As a result, in the campaign preceding the first free elections, the environment featured highly on the agendas of the political parties. With the new freedom new organizations started to form and become active. Among others, environmental NGOs spread all over the country. Green parties also formed from dedicated environmentalists. Though they did not have representatives in the parliament they were able to promote environmental issues in the media. Freedom of speech is another great achievement of the new democracy in Hungary. Environmental problems are now open for discussion, although information on the environment is still not sufficient.
Replacing the former unilateral Eastern political orientation, the main objective of Hungarian foreign policy has become integration with Western Europe. Hungary is currently an associate member of the EU. This facilitates cooperation with EU's existing environmental protection institutions and EU environmental directives are continuously being incorporated into the Hungarian regulatory system.
In 1990 the highest level of environmental management was reorganized. Responsibilities were spread among the Ministry for Environment and Regional Planing (abbreviation in Hungarian, Ministry for Transport, Communication and Water Management, Ministry for Agriculture, Ministry for Interior, Ministry for Welfare, Ministry for Industry and Trade and municipalities. (Responsibilities will probably change as a result of the 1994 elections.) The administrative structure has also changed at the local level. Freely elected local governments are responsible for their territory, in principle, including the environmental issues. This means environmental responsibilities on a scale not experienced before. Addressing these issues is all but impossible due to the present lack of environmental management professionals. However, according to the legislative structure the responsibility for environmental issues lies primarily within the competence of the environmental inspectorates.
The national assembly has passed 300 laws in the last few years, even though these laws are sometimes uncoordinated. New environmental law has been submitted to the parliament but it has not yet debated the bill. For the 1994 elections, each party developed its own environmental program. Unfortunately, however, the experience of the past four years indicates that these programs may remain more rhetoric than anything else. Politicians who promoted environmental protection during their campaigns in 1990 changed their tunes once elected: they considered economic and social problems to have higher priority. Environmental issues were only complicating the difficulties of the moment. At May of 1994 the environment generally remained missing from the agenda of public discussions as economics and unemployment dominated attention.
The country's future heavily depends on the success of its economic restructuring. In general, Hungary is becoming a more energy efficient economy. Specifically, the main issue is to identify the prosperous economic sectors and the most environmentally sensitive sectors, and then to investigate and evaluate them. The traditionally overdeveloped sectors like metallurgy and mining are declining, which is good news from an environmental standpoint. The building materials and chemical industries seem to have comparative advantages.
The decreasing GNP has meant decreasing pollution, i.e. the decrease in production from heavy industry resulted in a substantial improvement of the environment, mainly with respect to air pollution and hazardous wastes. In the agricultural sector the effect has been similar. The land of the formerly state owned farms has been divided into small, privately owned plots and the farmers have no money to buy pesticides and fertilizers. This has been good for the environment, but bad for the economy due to lower production levels.
The privatization process supports restructuring and has a positive effect on the environment. The new companies want to be cost-effective. Once energy pricing reflects real world values, companies will make greater efforts to reduce energy consumption. In addition, implementing laws and regulations which hold the polluter responsible for environmental damages encourages companies to reduce their impacts on the environment. At present, these instruments do not exist in Hungary.
The inflation rate is decreasing in Hungary with the current projection for 1994 being 20%. During the past four year period industrial production prices doubled, agricultural purchase prices rose by 70% and consumer prices went up 260%. The high inflation rate has made loans expensive, which together with the high tax rates has discouraged investments, especially those for environmental protection.
In Hungary an extremely fast privatization process took place. The privatization and subsequent bankruptcies of many enterprises in the transition period have led to new problems. The regulations governing bankruptcy declarations are also faulted. In such cases a company is only required to self-report the extent of environmental damages it caused and there is no follow-up auditing of the validity of this declaration. Privatisation could have been a good opportunity for the assessment of environmental assets and damages. Albeit there is an obligation by law, there is a general resistance to include environmental experts in the privatization process. The result is that privatization agencies do not confer with environmental experts. Many complicated questions are raised with respect to this issue, i.e. how should properties be evaluated, what standards are necessary to measure environmental clean-up costs, and how much training is needed in agencies to effectively run the privatization process.
The number of privately owed enterprises has increased sevenfold since 1989. Average company-size is smaller than before, which makes it difficult to follow their economic or environmental impacts effects and also complicates enforcement. Due to the lack of adequate capital and weak enforcement some of these companies are ready to buy obsolete Western technologies. Some companies have imported wastes from the West, claiming they are raw material for their production process in order to get around the waste import laws. Small environmental businesses have also emerged. They have an unambiguous, positive effect, even though their technical capabilities and level of proficiency are generally low. There is a lack of professional organizations representing their interests, which would exclude enterprises with low operating standards.
The present economic situation in Hungary does not favor environmental improvements, therefor, compromises which balance environmental and economic standpoints should be made. These compromises should not result in irreversible change in the environment. In addition to market mechanisms for environmental protection state actions are also needed to counteract certain exaggerating effects of the market, and the proper adaptation of international experiences to the Hungarian circumstances. For example, seriously polluted air, caused by traffic, is damaging the environment. The well-developed railway and public transport system could be used to reduce pollution, (e.g. in cities or by replacing truck transport with rail transport).
Consumption patterns of the above average income group changed in an environmentally harmful direction. This group is buying an increasing amount of expensive goods with more and more throw away packaging material, while selective waste collection has yet to be introduced. On the other hand, a positive trend is that old, highly polluting cars are being replaced with new cars with low emission. However, the overall number of cars is increasing and the total emissions from transport has not changed. While the perceived Western attitude favoring healthy living and physical exercise has been quickly adopted by these people, environmental awareness has not become fashionable with them. A typical example is the failure of selective waste collection schemes in the wealthy districts of Budapest due to non-compliance.
The free, self-organization of society is favorable for environmental interest groups. Today, Hungary has an open social system. The public has become more sensitive to environmental problems and in many cases plans to build polluting factories have been terminated due to the opposition of the public. NGOs in Hungary are well-developed. However, some think they are losing popularity. First described as heroic, now the media are not showing much interest in their activities. The development of a strong environmental lobby is needed.
In the past, agricultural production was increased by excessive use of chemicals. The negative effects on natural assets were apparent and far-reaching. Despite the fact that chemicals are no longer used to a great extent in agriculture, the effects of the previous heavy chemical use persist.
Lake Balaton has a special importance for the tourist industry. In the summer season some 2 million tourists visit the lake shores and spend 20 million visitors-day there. Lake Balaton, Hungary's main recreational district, is polluted by sources of effluent originating from communal sewage systems, agricultural activity and other causes. The impact of these effects has resulted in the diminishing quality of the lake as a recreational area. However, ambitious regional programs, such as sewage treatment and diversion and the re-establishment of the reservoir called Small Balaton gives hope for improving the water quality of the most threatened Western bay of Lake Balaton.
Regarding specific pollution problems, in contrast to other CEE countries, environmentally critical areas are less concentrated in Hungary and only a few hot spots can be named, and the differences between these areas and other parts of the country with more typical levels of pollution is less pronounced. These "warm spots" are the Sajo valley, the Transdanubian industrial district and Budapest. The most serious problem is the increasing contamination of drinking water sources.
Hungary has a lot of contaminated sites around chemical factories. The chemical industry was quite developed in Hungary at the beginning of this century and through the 1960s. The chemical industry produces a lot of hazardous waste. Because the management of this hazardous waste is not regulated in a proper way, there have been a lot of instances where people have discovered hazardous waste under the ground surface. Former Soviet military bases should also be mentioned. Many natural areas have been polluted by kerosene, oil, etc. Of more than 170 sites requiring remediation, twenty have already been cleaned-up and five additional sites are in preparation.
There is a real threat of groundwater levels dropping in certain regions surrounding the Danube near the Slovak border. Since this groundwater is the only water supply source for some areas, there could be serious water shortages in the area. The controversial issue of the diversion of the Danube at Bšs is still unsettled and the feasibility of achieving an immediate solution is low.
To reduce air pollution government regulations are necessary, such as emission limit values based on BAT (best available technology) principles, sulphur and carbon taxes, establishment of subsidies on unleaded petrol, restricting importation of polluting cars, etc.
The MoE does not have enough leverage to negotiate with other ministries for the incorporation of environmental considerations into the policies of other sectors such as energy, finance or economic development. According to some experts the MoE needs more highly trained environmental specialists, often right to the top level. Others criticized it as being too political. The budget allocation for the ministry provides an insight into the priority given to environmental protection by the government (0.6% of GNP is allocated for environmental protection whereas environmental damage is estimated at 3-10% of the GNP).
Since enforcement is so critical all over the country, regional inspectorates should be strongly supported. Currently, however, they have little incentive or motivation. Their financial basis should be more substantial. At this moment, unfortunately, inspectorates work partly as government authorities and partly as private consulting firms because they are only partially supported from the state budget, creating a strange situation. This should be changed as soon as possible. These bodies should be fully supported by the state.
There is a lack of new laws or regulations tailored to solve Hungary's environmental problems. Necessary environmental legislation has not yet been enacted and most of the special regulations are obsolete or missing. Additionally, there are aspects of law enforcement that are unsuitable in the post-socialist era development climate. The newly adopted EU regulations might lose effect due to the serious difficulties of enforcement.
The Constitution of Hungary recognizes the right to a healthy environment. The Constitutional Court recently ruled that it is against the Constitution for the state to allow changes in nature or in the quality of environment representing setbacks from already achieved levels. The application of this decision has stopped the privatization of nature protection areas, which was the practice of recent years. The Court, and the "Ombudsman" (an elected Speaker for Civil Rights) are obliged to guard environmental rights. The new environmental law, submitted to parliament during the spring of 1994, awaits to be reviewed and passed. Principles of public participation, right-to-know and freedom of information are appearing in legislation at various levels. They will have to be developed further and put into practice.
Former East-Block countries reduced most of their relations on the ministerial level. Fortunately, everyday cooperation continues at the operational level. Hungary's relations with other countries in the region regarding environmental issues could be much improved. (The Slovakian dam issue remains a major obstacle though and meaningful cooperation with the former Yugoslavia is out of question at the moment.) There is some cooperation with the Czech Republic. The best relations probably exist with Poland. Joint environmental actions within the CEE region are extremely limited at present. There are many areas that would benefit from joint agreement and cooperation among these countries (i.e. transportation and surface water issues).
Western countries have offered substantial support to Hungary during the transitional period. The most important aspects of this aid are in the form of knowledge transfer, help in institution building, and directly financing projects. The experiences with western assistance have not always been positive. Some consider the main goal of western consultants to be making money, which means that as little effort as possible is put into the work. Some "assistance" projects are organized in such a way that consultants come, write a report and leave again. This is, in fact, only transportation of money from the left pocket to the right, i.e., Western assistance is sometimes merely self financing, which really does not help Hungary that much. It is noted that Hungary is also guilty of this practice. CEE countries have not learned enough regarding the proper use of financial resources and they also lack experience to tackle environmental issues. Western programs, like PHARE, have very strict rules, making it difficult for countries to comply and receive assistance.
Hungary should make use of Western assistance and, therefore, develop better diplomacy by trying to combine the EU's interest with our own interest and then, for example, ask for more investments in alternative transport. International programs should be reformulated and the objectives should be adapted to the real needs of the countries. Furthermore, western consultants should pay more attention to the local circumstances.
Some experts also suggested that the most effective level on which to influence environmental policy making is the local authority level. NGOs on local level should cooperate with them. NGOs should act more as partners to local authorities and should be careful not to strictly emulate western NGOs because they have much greater financial resources and are working in a very different atmosphere.
During the democratisation process, the partnership between different interest groups has not been very good. This partnership between the different groups must be improved to solve the serious problems which exist. Many new NGOs have recently been formed and their role is not well defined.