The draft Partnership Agreement (PA) that the government recently submitted to the European Commission may not comply with EU laws and objectives, the Clean Air Action Group has concluded. The adoption of the PA and the related operational programmes would make it possible for the Hungarian government to start receiving more than 9,000 billion forints of EU cohesion funding for the period 2021-27. In other words, Hungary can only get access to these funds if the Commission adopts these documents.

Although the government has so far not made public the version submitted to the Commission, news reports suggest that it is essentially the same as the version published on the government’s website on 8 October. The main shortcoming of the draft is that it mostly envisages infrastructure developments that could increase environmental degradation because of their raw material and energy requirements, and it does not show how far the country is making progress towards meeting the EU’s climate and environmental targets. For example, the construction of the proposed motorways and the increase in the depth of the Danube would certainly further degrade our natural assets. The PA refers to the Lake Balaton region as a priority development area, which is equally worrying, since in practice this already means that EU taxpayers (including Hungarians) are financing investments that are environmentally and economically unsustainable, far beyond the tolerance of the area concerned and often cause enormous natural destruction. The short-term benefits of these investments accrue to private operators, while the burden of the necessary public services, environmental damage and the long-term unsustainability of the installations falls on the community.

The energy section of the draft does not foresee effective measures to improve energy efficiency, in particular the renovation of buildings. The air quality section lacks measures to reduce emissions from domestic heating and is also too focused on new infrastructure. It blames air pollution primarily on ‘coal-fired boilers’, while failing to mention that the coal used is lignite of the worst quality, the sale of which for domestic heating could and should have been banned years ago. Nor does it mention that the most dangerous air pollution to human health comes from the widespread burning of waste in households and, above all, that the lack of government action allows these illegal activities to continue.

András Lukács, President of Clean Air Action Group, said, “While EU legislation requires the Partnership Agreement to be subject to public consultation, the Hungarian government has submitted the draft without making the final version public, either in advance or to date. This in itself jeopardises the adoption of the document by the Commission. More worryingly, the PA is also likely to breach EU law on a number of other points.

It is a fundamental problem that, while a Member State can only receive EU funding if it complies with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, this is far from the case in Hungary. Compliance requires significant improvements in the freedom of the press, the judiciary and the work of the prosecution, as well as the elimination of political discrimination and meaningful anti-corruption measures.

The Clean Air Action Group’s detailed assessment of the draft Partnership Agreement can be found here: https://www.levego.hu/egyeb/kiadvanyok-hatekony-unios-tamogatasokkal-a-klimasemleges-europaert/

Photo by András Lukács, Clean Air Action Group