In Hungary, aside from elections and the change of government, the dominant theme in 2010 so far has been water. But this is about elemental forces, environmental damage and climate change – not just because the government here has chosen water as a priority for when Hungary takes on the EU Presidency in the first half of 2011.
In the past couple of weeks the world has seen pictures of Hungarian villages under a flood of dark red sludge from aluminium processing waste. This overflowed its containment area, killing several people, injuring lots more and destroying or damaging many homes, before turning the Marcal River into an ecological disaster zone. There is also a risk of damage to Strauss’s beautiful “Blue Danube”, although the authorities currently seem to believe that is slight. The international community is rallying round.
But before this latest catastrophe, torrential rains in the spring and summer (beating records for the past 100 years) had caused massive flood damage in parts of the country – especially in North East Hungary. This year’s harvest has been hit hard and there is still a serious problem with standing water on farmland. In contrast, in recent years, 2003 experienced unusually powerful heat waves and droughts, which also caused huge damage. This is evidence of what climate scientists have long been warning: regional weather extremes becoming more frequent.
Specifically, the Hungarian Academy of Science has coordinated a 3 year long impact assessment study analysing the consequences of climate change in Hungary. It has found Hungary has an above average vulnerability and that flooding and droughts both pose a serious threat to the country. Under the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, Hungary is a country affected by desertification (i.e. land degradation), which will come as a surprise to some. The British Embassy here has been working with environmental experts and activists here to help draw attention to environmental problems and solutions – most recently through promoting the “10:10” campaign.
A key theme of the Hungarian Presidency will be water. The government aspires to turn the Danube zone into the EU’s second macro-region (the Baltic Sea being the first). With this in mind, Hungary has been working with Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, as well as with non-EU countries of the region i.e. Bosnia, Croatia, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia and the Ukraine to develop a Danube Strategy. Bringing together a range of projects relating to regional development and giving them some coherence is clearly desirable in principle. But the devil is in the detail. Take, for example, navigability. The entire section (about 400 km) of the Danube that falls on Hungarian territory is not navigable for most of the year. Any attempt to address that difficulty might trigger a controversy about how it affects environment and water supply.
Some 20 years ago the dispute between the then-Czechoslovakia and Hungary over a hydro plant (at Gabcikovo-Nagymaros) and artificial modification of the Danube’s route ended up in a protracted law suit in the International Court of Justice. Hungary will therefore have to work out how to sell any innovative ideas for the Danube without outraging environmentalists and harming water safety, while flagging up the potential to boost the economy and create jobs. It is true that the potential for using the Danube for transport is very under-utilised. But addressing this issue will also bring a number of political sensitivities to the fore.
On a final positive note, Hungary’s thermal and mineral waters (e.g. the award-winning Szentkiralyi) are world famous. This resource forms the basis of a booming spa tourism and balneotherapy industry that attracts masses of British tourists annually. The small town of Boly in South West Hungary gets all its heat and hot water from thermal water and geothermal energy is used to heat one of Tesco’s flagship stores here – the potential for this national, renewable energy resource is enormous and the new Hungarian government plans to exploit this. British companies too have considerable expertise in this field and are ready to help – our Embassy is standing by to assist them.