The Visegrád Group’s Environment Ministers attended a two-day meeting in the Czech town of Lednice. Hungary was represented at the discussions by the Ministry of Agriculture’s Minister of State for Environmental Affairs Zsolt V. Németh.

The increasing importance of V4 cooperation is indicated by the fact that the Environment Ministries of Romania and Bulgaria were also represented at the meeting. The Czech Republic, which is the current President of the Visegrád Group (V4), placed several current environmental policy topics on the meeting’s agenda, including assessing the effectiveness of European Union measures introduced to protect biodiversity.

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In his speech, Minister of State Németh reported on the fact that Hungary has fully transposed the EU Habitats and Birds Directive into law and is also making good progress with regard to the Hungarian realisation of the EU Regulation concerning invasive species.

The other important topic of the meeting were questions relating to the realisation of the rotating economy concept put forward by the European Union. The average Hungarian currently generates 378kg of waste every single year, 35 percent of which is recycled. This may not put us near last place in European comparison, but countries with a more highly advance environmental industry are significantly ahead of us with regard to both waste prevention and material recycling. In addition to EU requirements, it is also in Hungary’s clear economic interests to ensure that the greatest possible ratio of the waste that currently ends up in landfills is instead returned to the production cycle, for which Brussels is willing to provide significant funding.

The second day of the V4 meeting saw the discussion of the increasingly serious drought-related problems that are a result of climate change. Handling drought is an extremely complex issue that involves many participants and therefore handling the problem is also only possible via a coordinated and complex approach. The countries of the V4 agreed to cooperate to combat the phenomenon through the mutual sharing of research results and best practices.

(Ministry of Agriculture)