“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Minister of State Levente Magyar has asked Romania to conform to international environmental norms”, the Ministry said in a statement to Hungarian news agency MTI on Tuesday.

As previously reported, the Minister of State for Economic Diplomacy summoned the Chargé d'Affaires of the Romania Embassy in Budapest to his office for a meeting on Tuesday afternoon with relation to the pollution of the River Aranyos. At the meeting, Mr. Magyar told the Romanian diplomat that it had taken four days for the Romanian authorities to officially inform the Hungarian party on 7 April after six million litres of grey sludge containing sulfuric acid spilled into the River Aranyos, which is part of the catchment area of the River Tisza, the longest river in Hungary, on 3 April. Accordingly, Romania failed to conform to its international obligations to immediately inform the affected parties in the case of an environmental emergency of this nature, which the Hungarian Government regards as unacceptable, especially in view of previous cases in which events in Romania have caused major damage to Hungarian territories, the statement stresses.

Hungary cannot waive its need to be informed immediately of the occurrence of any environmental disasters or emergencies, irrespective of to what extent the given pollution reaches the country. With relation to the case, the Minister of State asked the Chargé d'Affaires that Romania also assures the continuous flow of information with regard to both the tracking of the pollution and the final solution to the leakage at the sludge reservoir.

Following the meeting, Mr. Magyar stressed: “We must prevent the development of a sentiment with relation to Romania in its European partners according to which the country does not conform to fundamental international environmental norms”, the statement reads.

(Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade/MTI)