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Twinning project gets under way in Hungary

 

 

The implementation of EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) sets tight deadlines for both EU member states and candidate countries to comply with

 

 

Credit: S. VON KEITZ
Co-operation remains the key to successful water management - a German/French/Hungarian team at work

Many of the tasks required by the Water Framework Directive, such as the elaboration of significant criteria, typology, the setting of reference conditions and the development of assessment systems have not previously been addressed by water authorities in DRB countries. The WDF therefore cannot be applied in the Basin without some preparation activities.
In the beginning of 2002 Hungary asked the EU member states for assistance with the implementation of the WFD by publishing a fiche for an EU twinning project. A German/French consortium was authorised to provide the assistance and the project got under way in November 2002.
The overall objective of the project is to assist Hungary in aligning its national laws, rules and procedures to allow for the implementation of the WFD, and to ensure full institutional capacity in fulfilling the planning, regulation, reporting and information requirements set by the Directive. In the course of the project, the Hungarian Ministry of the Environment and Water will be supported in the enforcement and implementation through the development of a national accidental water pollution control system under the guidance of pre-accession advisor Pierre Henry de Villeneuve, villeneuve@mail7.ktm.hu and the development of a surface and groundwater monitoring system under the guidance of pre-accession advisor Stephan von Keitz.
The objectives of the accidental water pollution control system are to:
• create instructions for appropriate measures for the prevention of accidental water pollution;
• design a model watershed contingency plan, consistent with the WFD, on a pilot case study of a catchment area shared with a neighbouring country;
• improve the efficiency and rapidity of interventions in the case of accidental water pollution, and
• introduce new response techniques in Hungary.
The objective of the environmental monitoring system is to assess the environmental situation and to enable the administration to define where adequate measures have to be planned in order to achieve the quality standards of the objective. This includes:
• assistance in the development of a typology for Hungarian surface waters;
• definition of reference conditions and reference sites;
• the identification of significant surface and groundwater bodies, and
• the development of procedures for surface and groundwater assessment systems including biological assessment.
These activities will be executed in close cooperation with the Hungarian administration. The ICPDR Secretariat participates directly through the work of an expert.

 

Stephan von Keitz
vonkeitz@axelero.hu