Orban Urged to Tighten Environment Law Amid Battery Fears
(Bloomberg) -- Hungary amended a loophole in its environmental regulation to prevent battery makers from exploiting it, following protests even from within Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s own party.
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Orban’s cabinet last month changed legislation to allow polluting companies to escape fines or the possibility of a shutdown by signing contracts with authorities in which they pledge to cease illegal practices. While the government almost immediately said it would amend it to make clear it was targeted at an ailing iron-foundry, it only narrowed the application of a government order on Tuesday.
A surge in battery industry-related investments triggered widespread protests in Hungary, with residents including those in and around the country’s second-biggest city of Debrecen fearing contamination from factories that work with hazardous material. The executive order was changed a day after Debrecen Mayor Laszlo Papp called on the government to repeal the legislation.
The demand had carried political weight because Papp is a ruling-party mayor and has been a staunch supporter of Orban’s drive to make Hungary and Debrecen, in particular, one of the biggest producers of batteries for electric vehicles on the continent.
The city has received more than $10 billion in battery-related investments in the past two years alone, including from China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd, which is building Europe’s biggest battery factory there.
While the amendment is likely to be welcomed in Debrecen, environmental groups may be disappointed by the fact that the more lenient rules apply to all polluters outside of the battery industry, rather than just to one specific company. A green opposition party said it would ask the Constitutional Court to annul the legislation.
“The government has partially retreated,” Benedek Javor of the Parbeszed-Zoldek party said in a Facebook post. “But it’s still unconstitutional” for reducing the level of environmental protection in Hungary, he added.
(Recasts with Hungarian government’s amendment.)
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