Constitutional Court strikes down law that let Óbuda gas plant cleanup be repeatedly delayed
Hungary's Constitutional Court declared a 2004 government decree unconstitutional because it allowed the state and the plant’s owner to avoid timely remediation of the Óbuda gas plant’s pollution.
A Hungarian Constitutional Court decision found that a clause in government decree 219/2004, which protected the polluter from obligations after prolonged delays, breached the constitution’s environmental protection guarantee. The Óbuda gas plant, operating for more than seventy years, has contaminated surrounding soil and groundwater with a range of toxic chemicals, some of which have exceeded safety limits by hundreds or thousands of times and have occasionally become visible in the Danube during low water levels.
Although the plant’s successor, MVM Next Energiakereskedelmi Zrt., was ordered since the mid-1990s to remediate the site, deadlines set for 2017 and 2019 were repeatedly missed. A lawsuit filed by the Graphisopht park and later joined by the city of Budapest prompted the legal challenge. The court’s ruling nullified the problematic provision, removing the legal shield that had allowed the cleanup to be postponed indefinitely.
Why it matters
The ruling removes a legal loophole that let polluters delay environmental remediation, reinforcing Hungary's commitment to protect public health and the Danube.
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