The citizens of Szentgal near the northern shore of Hungary’s Lake Balaton still await the resolution of a prolonged legal battle over the establishment of a regional landfill near their town. When the proposal first surfaced, neighbouring settlements joined the town in opposition to the plan, but developers received several  of the necessary permits. It’s one of many examples in Central and Eastern Europe in which the fate of an environmentally significant project will be settled by a judge. Environmental conflicts in the region tend to be resolved through the classical judicial or administrative review procedure, while similar cases in Western Europe are increasingly being settled through environmental mediation, a recent study proved.

The expansion of the Vienna airport provides an example. A public presentation of the master plan in March 1998 triggered citizen protest and criticism from the media.

The conflict involved nearby communities, the project developers, citizens’ initiatives, local authorities, political parties, chambers of commerce and a multitude of other interested parties. With no easy way to please all the antagonists, the Vienna Airport sought the help of a professional mediator.

Five years later a package of legally binding agreements was signed by some 50 parties. The package set out obligations and procedures to be followed during further developments of the airport, including regulations for night flights, technical measures for noise reduction, environmental impact assessment, and the establishment of an environmental fund.
Kaidi Tingas, environmental mediation expert at the REC, sees this case as proof that mediation can settle even extremely controversial issues. Environmental mediation is a consensus-oriented procedure which strives for solutions acceptable to all, Tingas explained.

In 2004 the Environmental Management and Law Association (EMLA), a Hungarian advocacy group, attempted to use environmental mediation to solve the conflict in Szentgal. Although none of the parties favoured the approach, EMLA facilitated a negotiation meeting in which opposing sides had the opportunity to hear each other’s arguments and look for a mutually acceptable solution.

The absence of the project developer undermined that effort, but at least one important outcome was achieved: Hungary’s Ministry of Environment agreed to conduct a new geological survey of the landfill’s site based on information provided by the project opponents.

The REC and the Austrian Society for Environment and Technology analysed cases of environmental conflict and compared the use of environmental mediation in Austria and Germany versus its application in CEE. The study, published in 2006, showed that in complicated environmental controversies traditional forms of conflict resolution often prove ineffective, while consensus-oriented ones are more fruitful.

The Szentgal case in Hungary illustrates the lack of confidence in the use of mediation and other alternative methods to solve environmental conflicts. But CEE has learned its lessons, the study proved. A recent ongoing mediation procedure in Slovenia gives hope for mediation’s future in the region. The main objective of the case is to find a community that will agree to host a radioactive waste landfill.

Metka Kralj, a mediator for the Agency for Radwaste Management in Slovenia, has provided information to prospective communities about the project’s implications, collected feedback from interested parties and helped local communities decide whether to host the landfill. The candidate sites were subject to a pre-feasibility study and further work is being carried out to identify the landfill’s final location.

Dana Carmen Romanescu is a project manager in the REC’s Environmental Law Programme. For more information, see
<www.rec.org/REC/Programs/PublicParticipation/Mediation/Default.html>.