Between April 1996 and April 2000, the Council held 42 plenary sessions. In accordance with the procedural rules, the Council also resorted to ad hoc and/or permanent subcommittees. The NEC, with this tested practice, and constructive flexibility tried to resolve the problem in its operation which comes from the fact that governmental decision preparation, conciliatory processes and the activity of a non-governmental advisory organisation work at divergent paces. The three member groups were equally represented in the committees. Authority was delegated to the committees but subsequently the plenary session always approved their positions. In the past four years subcommittees have operated and have been set up in the following fields:
The positions and opinion of the Council will be on the homepage of OKT from 2000 fall
A full list of the positions 1996 – 2000 can be found here.
In the majority of cases, all member groups were ready to go to the limit of reasonable and still acceptable compromises when the positions were elaborated. Their basic motivation is to strengthen the role of environmental protection in Hungary, to this end; uniform conduct creates more favourable situation than division. There were three occasions with greatly diverging views: the part of the animal protection bill referring to the use of test animals, the bill on genetically modified organisms as well as the goals and economic reasonability of the utilisation of the Central Environmental Fund. In all these cases, separate opinions were also drafted.
The positions have regularly been sent to the Prime Minister’s Office, the Environmental Protection Committee of the National Assembly and the leaders of the affected ministries. The minutes of the meetings are sent to the leaders of the Ministry for Environment (KöM). Minutes recording the facts are kept about all sessions and the subsequent plenary meeting approves them with necessary modifications.
The relationship between the Council and the leaders of the ministries (in general administrative state secretaries and the professionally relevant deputy state secretaries) is correct and adequate. Through the designated contact persons of the ministries interested in environmental protection, the Ministry for Environment, the Ministry for Welfare, the Ministry for Finance, the Ministry for Agriculture and Regional Development and lately the Ministry for Foreign Affairs have been represented on several occasions. The Council gained positive experiences from the co-operation with the Ministry for Economic Affairs and the Ministry for Transport and Water Management.
At the same time the Council objects that the environmental, space structural etc., analysis of transport policy comprising all sectors has not been accomplished despite the request of the Body although the environmental impacts of the transport system are decisive.
The endeavour, in the last two years, primarily by the non-governmental organisations to urge the OKT to initiate and organise public forums with the participation of other social groups, advocacy groups and municipalities is to be highlighted. Among them, particularly the forums organised on accession to the European Union were successful, they attracted great number of participants and drafted positions. The OKT has published the latter ones along with the Academy and the Federation of Hungarian Conservationists.
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