The 25th National Meeting of Environmental and Nature Protection Civil Organizations – after the initiation of the Clean Air Action Group –accepted the following statement:

In civilized countries the public administration is highly respected

The participants of the 25th National Meeting of Environmental and Nature Protection Civil Organizations express deep concern about the government’s policies which have weakened the environmental and nature protection authorities both in number and professional level, narrowed their rights and reduced their independency.

In the last few years Hungary suffered from many big environmental and health issues. The red-sludge catastrophe, the German garbage scandal, the illegal deforestation and the huge amount of poison leaked into the soil from chemical plants in Budapest are just a few examples of the many undesirable events which could have been prevented by appropriate action by the authorities.

Hungary has a relatively low law-abiding culture and the Hungarian government also did not exploit all the possibilities to enforce existing legislation. In this situation further weakening of the environmental and nature protection public administration is a particularly irresponsible move. It is quite predictable that this will lead to more frequent environmental scandals.

Usually the justification for downsizing the public administration is “the improvement of the economic competitiveness”. However, the overwhelming majority of Hungarian and foreign entrepreneurs in Hungary – just as every citizen who lives here – do not want the state organs to be lenient, but they need highly professional administration acting quickly and according to the laws.

In fact, the good image and the competitiveness of Hungary can be endangered by fraud and scandals. Losing the trust could make it more difficult to sell our products and it might scare away the investors and the tourists from abroad. International examples prove that a strong, efficient state administration in environmental and nature protection greatly contributes to the improvement of the economic competitiveness.

Tokaj, 26.04.2015”