Hungary will set up a new national environmental authority on 1 January 2027, under a government decree published in the official gazette Magyar Közlöny on Thursday.
The National Environmental Supervisory Authority will operate as a central budgetary body under the minister responsible for the living environment, headquartered in Budapest. It will be established by being spun off from the ministry and comprise a central organisation and territorial Environmental Supervisory Authorities, whose decisions may be appealed, where the law allows, to the central authority at second instance.
The new body will handle environmental, waste management, nature conservation, genetic technology, animal welfare, forestry, climate protection, and water management and water protection authority and administrative tasks nationwide, with the declared aim of creating a more unified professional practice and strengthening the protection of environmental values.
It receives a special mandate on batteries: permitting and supervision related to battery manufacturing, its associated activities and facilities, and the handling of battery waste may be transferred to the new authority’s nationwide competence, so that the professional expertise and authority action needed to police the industry are concentrated in a single organisation.
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According to the decree’s justification, the qualitative and quantitative expansion of battery manufacturing and the battery waste it generates present new environmental protection tasks. On these, the authority is to cooperate with the other state bodies involved in overseeing the battery industry, including the metrology and technical safety, industrial safety, fire protection, market surveillance and consumer protection authorities.
The reorganisation will happen in two stages: the central authority and the Budapest Environmental Supervisory Authority are established on 1 January 2027, and the units of the government offices dealing with environmental, waste management, nature conservation, forestry, water management and related tasks will be merged into it on 1 July 2027. Staff employment relationships, property rights, movable and immovable assets, equipment and infrastructure tied to those tasks will transfer to the successor organisation.
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