Hungarian

National Council

on the Environment

General Director, Central Food Research Institute

Environment Minister

Director, WWF Hungarian Programme Office

Member of the Academy, Advisor to the President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

President, National Society of Conservationists

Hungarian Federation for Electronics and Informatics

Ecological and Botanical Research Institute of the Academy of Sciences

DUNAPACK Co. Ltd

"Pilis" Park Forestry Co. Ltd

MOL - The Hungarian Oil Company

Environmental Partnership for Central Europe

Ecological Institute for Sustainable Development

Dr György Ilosvay

CHINOIN Co. Ltd member of Sanofi-Synthelabo Group

University of Economics, Budapest

GÖNCÖL Alliance

University of Veszprém

National Public Health Centre, National Institute of Environmental Health

"ÉLETFA" Environmental Association

Technical University of Budapest

E+E Ltd.

The idea to establish an independent advisory body which comprises representatives from various scientific and social communities emerged during the preliminary round-table negotiations on the draft of the Act LIII of 1995 on the General Rules of Environmental Protection („Environment Act“). An early example of non-governmental academic advisory committee was the Hungarian National Council of Environmental and Nature Protection established in the mid80s. Its composition and responsibilities were however considerably different from those of the subsequent National Council on the Environment.

The Hungarian National Council on the Environment („Council“) as defined in the Environment Act displays three essentially novel characteristics:

• The Council is a statutory advisory body to the Hungarian Government. It comprises an equal number (altogether: 21) of the representatives of the three major stakeholder groups in environmental matters, such as industry, academia and the environmental movement. Selection of representatives of industry and the environmental movements takes place through procedures determined by the interested groups themselves whereas the academic community is represented by delegates appointed by the president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Such composition provides an opportunity to raise, confront and, possibly, reconcile the various interests and ideas involved.
• The Environment Act confers broad competencies on the Council. It delivers preliminary expert opinions and reports on draft legislative acts as well as governmental and ministerial decrees. Such prior assessment is necessary in order to ensure that due account is given to relevant environmental considerations in drafting a piece of legislation.
• The existence and the operation of the Council is an eloquent example of the implementation of the principle of public participation: an essential precondition for making a successful national environmental policy.

The Hungarian Council is unique in its composition and responsibilities in Central and Eastern Europe. In Hungary, the Council has proved a lively forum where business organisations, non-governmental bodies and representatives of the academic community hold regular discussions on issues and solutions of environmental problems, and where a common position can be reached through such discussions. There exists no similar institution in the country which would fulfil this role.

Rules of procedure and other organisational features

The main provisions of the rules of procedures prepared and adopted by the Council are as follows:

• The principle of „balance of powers“ prevails in the decision-making procedure. In the meetings half of the members constitutes a quorum with each member group (panel) to be represented by three persons at least (there are seven members in each group). In the case of qualified majority voting four members from each group have to be present.
• The chairman’s term of office is two years. This position rotates among the leaders of the member groups every two years. The environment minister is ex legem honorary co-chairman of the Council.
• In the case of substantial dissent both majority and minority opinions have to be put in writing. Consequently, both opinions have to be submitted to the Government, and made public.

Administrative work is carried out by the Secretariat, residing in the Ministry of Environment (MoE). The head of office, the Secretary-General is responsible for the preparation of the meetings, and is assisted by a legal adviser and a secretary. Current facilities at the disposal of the Council (size and quality of the premises, equipment, etc.) meet the basic requirements.

The budget of the Council (HUF 12 million in 1998) is included as a separate entry in the budget of the MoE. It covers the expenditures of the Council’s activities. The members of the Council are not salaried, all activities are carried out entirely on a voluntary basis.

The Council has established a good work relationship with the Environmental Protection Committee of the Parliament. The Chairman of the Committee regularly participates in the Council’s meetings. Similarly, the Committee invites the chairman of the Council or his representative to its meetings. The Council’s Chairman, the vice-chairmen or the Secretary-General participate in the meetings of the Committee only when issues previously opinionated by the Council are on the agenda or the Council holds a particular interest in an issue before the Committee.

The Council has established multi-fold contacts with the administration of the MoE. The Minister or the state secretaries on his behalf, the deputy state secretaries, the heads of the departments and other ministerial officials participate in the discussions of the Council on a regular basis. Other interested ministries have also appointed their liaison officials who are responsible for keeping contact with the Council. Once initial problems have been overcome the liaison persons have made a valuable contribution to the Council’s work. Such initial problems include commonly held misconceptions about the responsibilities of the Council. The Council, quite wrongly, was seen as an additional body in the preliminary inter-ministerial co-operation/co-ordination. In fact, the Council’s role is to provide an opinion about plans, policies and legislative acts following such inter-ministerial phase, prior however to submission thereof to the Government. It must be pointed out though that the permanent time constraints generated by expedited legislative procedures have considerably hampered the deepening of relations with such other ministries and departments.

The Council’s relationship with the media has not been intense. The Council never aspired to attract premature media attention before an appropriate co-operation among the three member groups has materialised. This has resulted in a low-profile publicity.

The relationship between the panels of the Council and the organisations delegating their members varies in style and intensity according to the characteristics and organisational features of the individual member groups. In general, the flow of information and the feedback has been seen satisfactory to all the three panels and their respective electorates.

The full Council meets once in a month, but it may also deliver its opinion through sub-committees or committees delegated on an ad hoc basis. The opinions formulated by ad hoc committees are approved by the plenary meeting.

The annex contains a list of the official opinions adopted by the Council.

In the drafting of official opinions the panels have mostly been able to reach a rational compromise. The primary objective of the Council is to strengthen the national position of the environmental policy, therefore its aims lies in uniform action rather than disharmony.

However, major dissents have been expressed only on two occasions:

• the use of animals for laboratory experiments, and
• proposals of the Act on genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

The individual members’ contribution to the work of the Council varies. The assessment of the participation ratio of the member groups shows that the NGOs have been the most active, the business and professional organisations have been less active while the representatives of the academic fora rank third.

The representatives of NGOs and professional organisations usually take the lead in initiating new items on the agenda. They have also proved the most active as regards participation in debates. Academics have displayed more of an interest mostly in cases where questions directly relevant to scientific research were at issue, such as animal research, GMOs, agri-environmental measures.

Minutes are taken at every meeting which are approved at the following meeting.

The opinions are regularly sent to the Prime Minister’s Office, to the Environmental Protection Committee of the Parliament and to the leaders of ministries concerned. The minutes are communicated to the key officials of the MoE.

The relationship between the Council and the leaders of the other interested ministries has been correct and fruitful, nevertheless, in the case of the Ministry of Finance, the Council has failed to establish personal contacts with its main officials.

It is difficult to find a definite answer to the question whether the Council has been successful during these years or not. Has it managed to achieve that stakeholders with manifold interests work together through a longer period? Has their collaboration yielded in any tangible results?

The firm belief commonly held by the members of the Council is that it has not fallen short of its statutory role. It has managed to establish new communication links among the various interest groups as well as ministries. It is admitted though that some of the original goals remain unattained. Launching the Council was heralded as an important step towards a new era, some of the expectations however were no doubt excessive. Hence, some new objectives need to be set out in a new „action plan“, which plan should be completed by the year 2000.

In brief, the Council considers its activity as a promising start. However, members are fully aware that the efficiency of the Council’s work needs to be improved in order to meet the increasing demands of their sending institutions.

Co-operation and collaboration among the MoE, NGOs, professional organisations, unions and the members of the scientific community has improved significantly between 1996 and 1998. The existence and the operation of the Council further contributed a great deal to this favourable process.

The main shortcoming seems to be that the Council was not able to completely fulfil the extensive tasks assigned thereon by the Environment Act. It is clear now that these tasks were based on excessive expectations. A consultative body with restrained budget and administrative capacity is not able to compete with the whole public administration engaging in expedited legislative work. The solution should not be the amendment of the relevant provisions of the Environmental Protection Act but rather a reform of the internal procedures of the Council by establishing priority lists comprising all the major important tasks.

The Council has made an insufficient use of its numerous opportunities of initiative. Work would have been more efficient had the procedures, methods and subject matters of discussion been selected more flexibly. The Council should also have relied on outside sources of opinion more extensively and should not have excluded the general public from its work. Consequently, a more flexible and open approach will have to be employed in the future. Such approach, through a greater degree of legitimacy, would also strengthen the lobbying capacities of the Council.

The Council as a collective body of experts and stakeholders performs an advisory role, and by doing so it promotes the strategic position of environmental protection in the national political, economic and social life. As a consequence of the results of the Council’s activity this position has been considerably strengthened by spring 1998. Nevertheless, such favourable conditions are still not adequate to ensure that Hungary meets the environmental requirements of the European Union.

The members of the Council are of the opinion that the work must carry on, yet with substantial changes as to the means employed.

The structure and frequency of the meetings need to be reformed as follows:

• Plenary sessions should be held every second month where the Council would mainly discuss comprehensive conceptual questions and strategic issues. Should a case of urgency arise, additional meetings can be convened. The rules to be followed in such a situation are to be incorporated into the Rules of Procedure.
• Permanent sub-committees should be set up, such as (exemplary list):
• Legal and economic regulations;
• Energy policy, transport;
• Protection of environmental elements, waste management;
• Nature conservation, agri-environmental protection, forestry.
• Such sub-committees should be composed of six to nine members delegated by the stakeholder groups on an equal footing. A person can take up a position in more than one sub-committee.
• Ad hoc committees can also be empowered to discuss special cases.
• The permanent and ad hoc committees discuss legislative drafts and development/action plans. Recourse to outside experts would be allowed.

The Council should hold several public forums/conferences every year on „hot issues“. Depending on the actual topic, public participation of NGOs, chambers of commerce, trade unions, local/regional authorities and local governments should be ensured. Representatives of the Government should also be invited.

The statements/opinions of the Council and of its sub-committees – provided publicity is allowed in a given case – should be published in the Official Gazette issued by the Prime Minister’s Office.

The Council should follow-up its statements/opinions, and solicit regular feedback. In case of refusal, clear reasons have to be given in writing.

The representative of the Environmental Protection Committee of the Parliament, the chief advisor on environmental protection at the Prime Minister’s Office as well as the head of the environment minister’s office should be invited to the plenary meetings. The Environment Ministry’s officials specialised in the subject at issue are also to be better involved.

The Chairman, the vice-chairmen and the Secretary General should carry on personal consultations with the administrative state secretaries of the ministries concerned. Following this line, it is of great importance to establish contacts with the leaders of the Ministry of Finance.

The Council must endeavour that its work be better fit in the institutional mechanism of governmental decision making.

The following work priorities might be set:

1. Protection of the country’s natural resources, with special emphasis on water reserves, soil protection, protection of biodiversity, protection of forests and landscape.

2. „Background support“ of the preparation for the accession negotiations to the European Union. That implies a more intensive work in the following fields:

3. Promoting the “greening“ of the national budget. Special attention has to be given to the preparation and implementation of the annual action plan under the National Environmental Program.

4. Monitoring of the connections and interaction between environment and nature protection and regional development, supporting co-ordination of programs and actions.

5. Initiation and support of the activities dealing with R&D, education, demonstrative programmes of environment and nature protection and sustainable development.

6. Enhancing the flow of information.

Most European countries have an environmental advisory council that provides independent advice to regional and national governments on a wide range of issues including the societal, scientific, international, sustainable and long-term aspects of nature conservation and environmental policy. On the initiative of advisory councils from Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK, a number of European environmental councils established international co-operation in 1993. Later on, a Focal Point was set up to achieve closer collaboration and to strengthen the relations among the advisory bodies throughout Europe. The councils hold annual conferences where they identify and discuss crucial environmental policy issues.

First from Eastern Europe, the Hungarian Council has become an active member of the network of the European Environmental Advisory Councils since the Stockholm Conference in 1996. The 7th Annual Conference entitled „EU Eastern Enlargement and European Environmental Policy“ was hosted by the Hungarian Council between 9-11 September, 1999 in Budapest.

• Chapter “Environment“ of the country status report questionnaire of the European Commission
• Clean Hungary
• Amendment guidelines for the Constitution
• National Environmental Protection Program
• National Environmental Health Action Program
• Act on nuclear energy
• Conditions and tasks of water management on plains
• Development of the Hungarian power plant system
• Environmental implications of the national budget of 1997
• Budget and allocation guidelines of the Environmental Protection Fund in 1997
• Allocation of the Environmental Protection Fund for public interest purposes in 1997, and on the decree on financing environmental public interest activities
• Act of 1994 on arable land, and guidelines of agricultural subsidies in 1997
• Operational requirements of water public utilities
• Act on fishery
• Environmental implications of the development plan of transport
• Limitation of the transport of heavy trucks

The Council has also addressed:

• Drafts on natural protection including various proposals on the protection of nature, forests, wildlife, on wildlife management and hunting
• Institutional re-organisation of the regional work of the MoE
• Sewage problems of the Balaton region
• Proposals on air quality protection
• Interpretation of environmental crimes in the Criminal Code

• Notice for tender of the Environmental Protection Fund in 1997
• Basic principles of the National Agriculture Program
• Recommendations to the National Agriculture Program
• Act on Genetically Modified Organisms
• Act on Mining
• The participation of Hungary in the work of the UN EEC Trans-European Railway project between 1997 and 2000, and on the further operation of the Central Project Office in Budapest
• Action Program on the Implementation of the Hungarian Transport Policy
• Act on the Protection of Animals
• Proposals for the national budget
• Decrees on nuclear energy
• Decree on the Concept of National Regional Development Program
• Decree on the rotection, keeping, exhibition and utilisation of protected animal species
• Action Plan under the National Environmental Protection Program for 1998

A number of legal drafts and important questions were put on the agenda of the Council during these two years. The Council did not deliver a formal, official statement on these issues nevertheless by means of comments and recommendations communicated to the drafters it contributed to the finalisation of these proposals. These were as follows:

• Report on the budgetary conditions of the Environmental Protection Fund
• Ongoing environmental protection preparatory measures for the accession to the European Union (the chairman’s report)
• The work of the Committee on Sustainable Development (personal report by the committee’s Secretary General)
• Proposal of the Act on Health-care
• Ministerial decision on the Management Rules and the Use of the Environmental Protection Fund
• Audited budget of the Environmental Protection Fund, 1996
• Preparations for the accession to the EU in the field of waste management, air quality protection, water quality protection, nature protection and agri-environmental protection (reports by the officials of the concerned ministries)
• Conception of the framework Act on waste management
• Report on the strategy of the accession to the EU by the Environment Committee of the Integration Strategic Task Force
• The Role of the Electronic Media in the Promotion of Environmental Public Awareness (a study)
•  

• Agri-environmental aspects of the accession to the European Union
• An overall strategy for the accession negotiations on the environment and nature protection between Hungary and the European Commission
• Recommendations for the policy paper on agriculture, spatial planning and regional development
• National strategy on water management with special emphasis on the accession to the European Union
• National strategy on transport with special emphasis on the accession to the European Union
• National strategy on energy - a business model for the period 2000-2010
• Proposal on environmental emission charges
• On the mapping of natural areas
• Proposal on the Framework Act on Waste Management
• Proposal on the Act on Chemical Safety
• National strategy on the promotion of energy-efficiency and energy-saving
• Proposal on guidelines for the implementation of the National Environmental Program and its Action Plan for 2000
• Proposal on the Act on Plant Protection
• Proposal on the position paper of the accession negotiations on environment and nature protection between Hungary and the European Commission

The legal basis of the Council

1. The drafter of acts and other legal rules related to the protection of the environment (hereinafter: legal rules), of national social and economic plans and regional development conceptions, furthermore, of decisions resulting in regional impacts (hereinafter: decisions) shall assess and evaluate the impacts of measures on the environment and shall summarise them in an analysis of assessment (hereinafter: analysis of assessment).

2. For the purposes of subsection (1), legal rules related to environmental protection are acts, government decrees, ministerial decrees and decisions that have impacts on

a) the environmental components,

b) the quality of the environment or

c) human health in connection with the environment.

 

3. In the case of regulations introducing economic regulatory instruments related to environmental protection (such as rules on customs, taxation and duties, etc.) and the significant modification thereof, the analysis of assessment shall be carried out in every case.

1. The analysis of assessment shall cover, in particular, the following:

1. the extent to which the planned regulations and measures influence or may improve the state of the environment;
2. in case the planned measures were not implemented, what could be the damage caused to the environment or to the population;
3. the extent to which the conditions are adequate in Hungary for the introduction of the planned measures;
4. the extent to which the institutions of public administration are prepared for the implementation of the planned measures;
5. whether the governmental, financial, organisational and procedural conditions are available for the implementation of the planned measures;
6. the extent to which the proposal represents deviation from the solutions generally adopted by the international fora.

(2) Prior to submission of the drafts and the analysis of assessment specified in Section 43, subsection (1) to the body entitled to make decisions, they shall be sent to the National Council on the Environment for evaluation. At least thirty days - from the delivery of the draft - shall be provided for the preparation of an evaluation.

(1) In order to establish wide social, scientific and professional bases for environmental protection, a National Council on the Environment (hereinafter: Council) - consisting of up to 22 members - shall operate.

(2) During the Government’s term in office, and as an advisory body thereof, the Council shall take a stand on the matters of various environmental programmes, on the legal rules and decisions related to environmental protection (Section 43) and on other issues related to environmental protection in general. The Council shall submit to the Government its position on the decisions falling within the competence of the Parliament or the Government.

(3) In the Council, the representatives

1. of public organisations registered with environmental goals, as well as
2. of organisation representing professional and economic interests;

both elected in a matter determined by themselves;

3. appointed to this position by the scientific community and the president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

shall participate in equal proportions.

 

(4) The secretariat of the Council shall be provided for by the Minister through his office.

(5) The Council shall elect a chairman from among its members. Representing the Government, the Minister shall be the co-chairman of the Council.

(6) The Council shall fulfil its responsibilities specified in this Act in accordance with the rules thereof, and, as regards its other activities, it shall determine its rules of procedure.

(7) The operating costs of the Council shall be provided for under a separate title in the budget of the ministry in charge of the protection of the environment.

Secretariat of the Hungarian National Council on the Environment

(Országos Környezetvédelmi Tanács Titkársága)

1011 - Hungary

Telephone / fax: +36 1 4573 347

E-mail: oktt@ktm.x400gw.itb.hu

Edited by dr. Miklós Bulla

Translated by dr. Andrea Elek

Consultant editor: dr. Gábor Baranyai

Designed by Typocolor Bt.

Budapest, 1999