Umweltschutzrecht in Ungarn

Until 1990, Hungary’s environmental legislation had been broadly incomprehensive. Since then, several laws and judicial decisions were passed, and scholarly literature on this topic exists in abundance. However, as yet, there is no exhaustive evaluation of the development of the legal and legislative development of the country’s environmental law of the past thirty years. This article provides a historical overview of Hungary’s environmental law, followed by an outline of the developments of the 1990 s; it then presents Hungary’s post-millenial environmental law, shedding light on the first decade. The next chapter covers Hungary’s environmental law after 2010, which was a turning point in the country’s environmental policies, associated with the FIDESZ party’s accession to power and several controversial environmental policies. The article concludes that environmental law cannot be observed separately, but must always be reviewed in conjunction with, and in the context of, changes in the entire legal system and the political changes taking place in a country at large. Despite EU approximation of environmental law, there are still cases of Hungarian environmental law contradicting European domestic market fundamental freedoms and competition law.