Greenpeace Austria also approached the European Commission regarding the investment in Lake Neusiedl. In vain, the Hungarian authorities did not allow Austrian experts to participate in the environmental impact assessment of the investment, and the Hungarian government clearly violated EU law. The construction on the Hungarian side of the lake, in Fertőrákos, is only one kilometer from the Austrian border, so it is obvious that the environmental effects will be felt in both countries, nature conservationists write. on their website.
Both Austrian and Hungarian Greenpeace are demanding an immediate halt to the investment. Hungarian conservationists had already complained to the European Commission about the project months ago, and a so-called EU pilot procedure is underway. This is the pre-infringement stage, when the party concerned is given the opportunity to clarify the problems that have arisen – but construction is still going on during this time.
A luxury investment is being made
“In our first and only cross-border national park, the Fertő-Hanság National Park, the Hungarian government It plans to build a 100-room luxury hotel with 880-storey multi-storey car parks, adjoining apartment buildings and a huge indoor sports complex, artificial grass football pitches, tennis courts, and a marina sized for 850 sailboats that will carve 60 acres out of the reeds and lake bed. All this in an area that is protected by all existing domestic and international nature conservation legislation: National Park, Natura 2000 site, Ramsar-protected wetland, in addition to the UNESCO World Heritage List. area core area “- draws attention to Greenpeace.
“We continue to demand that the government immediately halt the luxury investment on Lake Neusiedl! We cannot allow our extremely valuable protected area to be destroyed, public money to be wasted in a way that does not serve the interests of the people living there, not the entire Hungarian population, but only the further comfort and enrichment of a narrow, economic elite while destroying our common wealth and natural treasures. this investment! ” Said Katalin Rodics, Greenpeace’s biodiversity campaign manager.
In April, Greenpeace Hungary challenged the approval of the Lake Neusiedl project in court, and in June, activists removed the nets they wanted to prevent the swallows from returning to their old nests to spend on the construction site. During the summer, the international secretariat of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands was also informed about the destruction, and a letter was written to the Hungarian Prime Minister, to which the government’s Minister of Agriculture, the current Minister of Agriculture, replied.
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