European Environment and Sustainable Development Advisory Councils | Bodies

The National Environmental Council held its first statutory session on April 12, 1996. Preceding this event the need for establishing an independent and permanent advisory body was raised at roundtable conferences and meetings with non-governmental organisations before the act on environmental protection was adopted. In course of these meetings, both the environmental organisations and the representatives of economic life and understandably the governmental sphere advocated the need for a consultative body. In their views that body should model the interested and affected parties’ expected behaviour and attitude to the governmental, sector and regional development policies thus predict the limits of consensus for the decision-makers in the period of decision preparation. This need was supported by the fact that the elaboration and implementation of environmental policy requires coordinated and joint efforts from all sectors of the society. That is why the Council can be a particular actor of environmental policy and legislation, in addition can simultaneously guarantee public participation, scientific basis of the decisions and reconciliation of economic and social interests.

Mission

The OKT is an advisory body to the Government. It expresses opinion on the planned governmental, sector and corporate regulations and/or other development programs. It is empowered to initiate its own publications, research and development programs and analysing/assessing the realization of former positions and initiatives.

Council Members

The Council is composed of 25 members from three societal groups: academia, business and NGOs and the Minister for Environment and Water.

The seven representatives of academia are appointed by the Hungarian Academy of Science), the environmental non-governmental organisations members are appointed by the General Assembly and the industry members are appointed by the Hungarian Industrial Association.

The goal of this composition is to reveal the different opinions and at the same time the possible compromises.

Chairman Miklós Galli	UNPACK Ltd
Co-Chairman Dr. Gábor Fodor	Minister for Environment and Water
Honorary Chairman Prof. István Láng	Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Vice-Chairman Ferenc Márkus	WWF Hungary
Vice-Chairman Dr. Sándor Kerekes	Dean, University of Economics, Budapest
Representatives of the Scientific Sector Dr. László Bozó	Head of Department, the Hungarian Meteorological Service
Dr. László Gallé	Professor, University of Science, Szeged
Dr. Ijjas István	Professor, University of Economics and Engineering, Budapest
Dr. Sándor Kerekes	Dean, University of Economics, Budapest
Dr. Sándor Papp	Professor, University of Veszprém
Dr. Anna Páldy	Chief Health Officer, National Institute of Environmental Health
Prof. György Várallyay	Soil and Agrochemical Research Institute, member of Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Representatives of the Environmental Non-Governmental Organisations Ada Ámon	Director, Energy Club
Ferenc Bojtos	Csemete Association
Ákos Malatinszky	Szent István University, Gödöllő
Ferenc Márkus	WWF Hungary
István Farkas	Hungarian Nature Conservationists Alliance
Zoltán Szabó	Clean Air Action Group
Benedek R. Sallai	Humusz Alliance
Representatives of the Industry Balatoni Henrik	Chair, Fe-Group Invest Ltd
Vilmos Civin	The Hungarian Power Companies Ltd
László Dzubay	Confederation of Hungarian Employers and Industrialists
Judit Török Fekete-Nagyné	Borsodchem Ltd.
Erzsébet Ódor	Environmental Protection Manager, CHINOIN Co. Ltd, Sanofi-Synthelabo Group
György Viszkei	Director, ÖKO-Pannaon Ltd

Staff Members

The OKT Secretariat has a secretariat with three staff. Administrative and other background activities between the sessions are carried out by the Secretariat operating in the building of the Ministry for Environment. Secretary-General upon the request and on behalf of the Council manages the Secretariat. Prof. Miklós Bulla is the Secretary-General.

Work Style

Tasks of the Council

The Council is an advisory body to the Government. In this capacity, it has the right and obligation to express opinion on the planned governmental, sector and corporate regulations and/or development programs, to see whether their authors have satisfactorily assessed and weighed the expectable impacts on the environment.

Although environmental and nature conservation councils exist in the neighbouring countries, their scope of competence differs from that of the OKT. The member states of the European Union also pursue different practices as to the level and way of composition in the councils and its authority.

In Hungary, the operation of the Council means the existence of a forum where representatives of business federations, non-governmental organisations and science discuss the risks and possible solutions of environmental problems jointly and regularly. The members can jointly develop common or minority opinion. So far, no similar institution operates in the country.

Substructure and Working Groups

Council Meetings

The Council's Plenary Sessions take place once a month (mainly first Thursday of the month) and the Working Groups meet as often as required.

Type of Advice

The Council chooses the advice it gives based on its own initiative and also on request of the Government.

Following the statutory session, the Council elaborated and unanimously adopted its procedural rules. The operation is characterised by the following special features:

The Council has developed good working relations with the Environmental Protection Committee of the National Assembly. The chairman of the Committee is a permanent guest at the sessions of the Council. The Environmental Protection Committee regularly invites the chairman of the Council to the open sessions of the Committee. The chairman, the vice-chairmen or the secretary general attends open sessions if the Council expressed opinion about items on the agenda or the Council is affected in some way.

The Minister for Environment acts as co-chairman in the Council. The Council has established multi-fold relationship with the staff of the Ministry for Environment. The State Secretaries and the Deputy State Secretaries, heads of departments and other officials regularly participate to discuss some items on the agenda.

The role of the Council (its task/jurisdiction) is not participation in intersectoral meetings but co-operation in the elaboration of concepts and/or expressing opinion on standard texts before submitting them to decision-makers.

The relationship between the Council and the media is casual. In the beginning, the Council itself did not force publicity because it rather wanted to establish adequate co-operative style among the scientists the representatives of green organisations and business life, wanted to achieve results and only then greater media publicity. In the past two years, the relationship of the Council to the media has not changed.

The relationship of the member groups of the Council to the organisations and institutions delegating them is of diverse intensity and character. The representatives of the economic organisations regularly report to the Environmental Protection Committee of MGYOSZ (National Association of Hungarian Manufacturers), whose head is the vice-chairman of MGYOSZ. The non-governmental organisations on the other hand give account of their activities at the annual, national meeting of the environmental protection, nature conservation organisations. In addition, at the monthly meetings of the environmental protection organisations, the participants are regularly informed on the activity and positions of the Council and the experts of the movement are requested to express their opinions on different concepts. The relationship between the representatives of science and the environmental protection committee of the Hungarian Academy of Science is casual, although the leadership of the Academy has become increasingly interested in environmental protection.

Activities in the EEAC Network

In 2005 October 6-8, The Hungarian Council, together with the Dutch Council for the Rural Area (RLG) has organized a conference on Rural Development in Hungary in Vác. The purpose of the conference was to present the statement “Rural Development Policies for the EU” to participants from national and regional governments, scientists and NGO’s and to develop the message into specific recommendations applicable to both the European Commission and Member States.

The OKT hosted the 7^th EEAC Annual Conference 1999 in Budapest on EU Eastern Enlargement and European Environmental Policy.
The environmental aspects of the eastern expansion of the union and the possible role of environmental councils to develop the environmental policy of the individual countries and the joint environment policy of the Union were on the agenda. The conference stated that the role of governments, in similar bodies and their leadership in the countries of the European Union, was smaller while in the Eastern-European countries usually the head of the state or the head of the government directed the body. Therefore, the Hungarian solution: elected chairman and minister as co-chairman is noteworthy and is to be followed according to the evaluation of the EU.

National Council on the Environment (OKT)

Országos Környezetvédelmi Tanács

Current and Future Activities

Present and Future Priority Fields

Background and Mission

Establishment