Szarvas, Gabor

English

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Policy 
Documentation 
Center Feature Article
Policy making and strategic environmental assessment at 
Hungarian local governments  
by Gábor Szarvas   
Background
Hungarian local governments are facing enormous environmental challenges at the verge of the coun-
try’s accession to the European Union. In addition to the long lasting problems of inadequate waste-
water treatment and industrial air pollution, recent economic development trends result in increased 
environmental pressures of road transport (noise and air pollution) as well as of municipal waste gen-
eration. Adoption of European Union policies and standards provide new opportunities and instruments 
for municipalities, yet there are also more and more responsibilities delegated to the local level of 
government. Local resources are, however, limited with regards to ﬁnancial, institutional and technical
capacities.
Integrating environmental aspects is the basis for sustainable development. To achieve an environmentally 
sustainable management structure, a vast array of instruments is needed. Each of these instruments has to be 
sophisticated yet simple. An instrument must be sophisticated enough to be appropriate for the purpose that it 
serves and for the complex environment we are living in. It must be simple to be understood by staff applying 
the instrument as well as by decision- makers. The latter have to provide ﬁnancial and human resources to
make the application possible. More importantly, the results produced by an instrument have to be understood 
and transformed into political action.
Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is commonly deﬁned as the application of environmental assess-
ment to policies, plans and programs. More speciﬁcally, it is “a systematic, on-going process for evaluating at
the earliest appropriate stage of publicly accountable decision making, the environmental quality, and con-
sequences of alternative visions and development intentions incorporated in policy, planning, or programme 
initiatives, ensuring full integration of relevant biophysical, economic, social and political consideration” (Par-
tidario, 1999).
According to ISO (1996), an environmental management system (EMS) is “that part of the overall manage-
ment system that includes organisational structure, planning activities, responsibilities, practices, procedures, 
processes and resources for developing, implementing, achieving, reviewing and maintaining the environmen-
tal policy” (ISO 14001:1996). The EMS concept builds upon the ‘plan-do-check-act’ (PDCA) management cycle 
concept, also known as the ‘Deming-model’. Implementing an EMS entails a systematic approach to environ-
mental management and as a comprehensive tool the EMS pulls together other environmental management 
tools and strategies.
The Problem
There are sophisticated environmental management tools, such as SEA and EMS, for the integration of en-
vironmental aspects and to support local governments in dealing with the immense tasks of environmental 
protection and development. However, essential conditions for a widespread adoption of these instruments, 
such as sources of information, funding, as well as local capacities are extremely limited.
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Central government has so far only provided limited support to local governments to build local environmental 
capacities. There have been hardly any guidance given on the adoption of comprehensive management tools. 
Even if local governments have decided to adopt such measures no funding is available from central sources to 
support such efforts. However, a key problem is that most local governments lack the expertise and capacity 
to initiate the adoption of such measures.
Options of Actions
Without the application of complex environmental policy and management instruments Hungarian local gov-
ernments will fail to achieve sustainable local development. The complexity of the prevailing problems require 
comprehensive approach to dealing with them. Fire-ﬁghting can only help in the short term, long term solu-
tions can only be found with the application of adequate policy and management tools.
The wider uptake of SEA and EMS can be achieved by several means:
1. launching an information campaign on the importance, the basic characteristics and the methods of ap-
plying these tools;
2. establishing legal requirements that will force the adoption these instruments;
3. providing economic support to local governments’ efforts through central funding mechanisms;
4. creating ﬁnancial incentives for local governments; and
5. setting example through adopting comprehensive environmental tools at central government ofﬁces.
While all these means are potentially applicable to achieve the desired outcome, the effectiveness and efﬁcien-
cy of these mechanisms are likely to differ signiﬁcantly. Most effective could seemingly be the establishment
of a strict requirement for local governments to adopt these tools within short period of time. However, in the 
absence of ﬁnancial support and professional guidance there is a high chance for local governments meeting
the requirement only on paper.
On the other hand, ‘soft’ tools, such as an information campaign, are likely to lead to only a limited number of 
local governments ultimately deciding upon the adoption of such instruments. While many would ﬁnd it ‘inter-
esting’ to learn about these tools, most local governments would feel little motivated to actually adopt them.
Financial motivations seem to be essential for a wider uptake of these instruments. Negative incentives, such 
as ﬁnes or penalties, are probably not appropriate in this ﬁeld, even if a strict legal requirement is envisaged.
Most effective are those mechanisms where local governments can obtain speciﬁc funding for implementing
these comprehensive tools.
Recommendations
Consequently, a combination of policy instruments are recommended for use by central government to support 
the wider adoption of comprehensive environmental management tools by local governments. Considering the 
different nature and origin of SEA and EMS the recommended policy instruments also differ.
With regards to SEA there is already a legal framework under preparation with objective of transposing the 
requirements of the EC SEA Directive into Hungarian law. It is recognised that the legislation will greatly con-
tribute to the wide-scale adoption of SEA in Hungary. However, for effective and efﬁcient implementation a
number of speciﬁc recommendations are to be made:
1. Distinction should be made between plans and programmes within the land use planning system and those 
within any other policy ﬁeld. Land use planning has a well developed system of assessment incorporated al-
ready into the planning process. This would require only minor modiﬁcations to satisfy the requirements of the
Directive. On the other hand, other sectoral plans and programmes require a rather ﬂexible approach to enable
the planning processes to adopt effective SEA mechanisms.
2. The requirements for different size and levels of local governments should be differentiated. Larger local 
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governments with more comprehensive policy making and planning systems, as well as with greater capacities 
should incorporate the speciﬁc SEA requirements in full scope. Smaller local governments should be enabled
and guided to select only the key plans and programmes that will be subject to SEA.
With regards to the policy instruments supporting the wide-spread adoption of environmental management 
systems a different set of recommendations can be made. These consider the voluntary nature of this instru-
ment, as well as the policy context within which local governments operate.
3. An information campaign should be launched that focuses on high level local government ofﬁcials and in-
form them about the advantages and beneﬁts of applying EMS at local governments. The campaign should
also provide directions to speciﬁc methodological guidance that can be used by mid-level ofﬁcials likely to be
responsible for implementation.
4. Technical support and guidance should be made available for local governments to implement EMS building 
upon the existing environmental management practices. Special emphasis should be placed upon the potential 
means of EMS implementation through elaborating already adopted municipal environmental programmes.
5. Targeted funds should be made available for local governments that decide to implement comprehensive 
environmental management systems. These funds should provide unconditional allowances for all eligible local 
governments but amounts should be differentiated by size, income and geographic location.
6. Further incentive is to be provided through providing advantages for local governments that have imple-
mented environmental management systems in applying for central funding.
Article referred to
Gábor Szarvas ‘Policy making and strategic environmental assessment at Hungarian local  
governments’  
http://pdc.ceu.hu/archive/00001850/
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Policy making and strategic environmental assessment at Hungarian local governments

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