BRATISLAVA, October 25, (WEBNOVINY) — Prime Minister Iveta Radicova convened a working meeting on Monday on old environmental burdens with the future Minister of the Environment Jozsef Nagy (MOST-HID) and representatives of employers‘ associations. The discussion focused on approval of a draft bill on old environmental burdens, which should a prevent similar ecological disaster in Slovakia as the one earlier this month in the Hungarian town of Ajka, where an estimated 700,000 to a million cubic meters of caustic industrial waste spilled out of the huge sludge depository when a dam broke at the local MAL alumina plant in Ajka. It flooded seven villages, killed at least eight people, and injured an additional 150.
„In order to prevent problems, we need to adopt a law which we have been putting off for years and which concerns burdens in our environment,“ the prime minister reasoned the meeting she initiated. She underscored that work on the bill have been underway since 2003 while in 2005, the first interdepartmental review was held, after which the bill was prepared to be tabled to the Cabinet’s Legislative Council. According to the Environment Ministry’ legislative schedule, the bill was to go to the Cabinet in April 2008. The prime minister said that it was ready in 2008 but her predecessor Robert Fico decided to not submit it due to concerns that it might impede employment, said Radicova. She however condemns when somebody compared the effects of threatened unemployment and endangered lives of citizens.
“All parties to whom it concerns are willing to agree on the wording of the bill, close these negotiations by November 15 and to submit the draft to interdepartmental review on the same day. She said that her Cabinet would not use expedited legislative procedure to have the bill shortly in parliament. She said that it is a too serious piece of legislation and thus the Cabinet would take seriously comments raised in its interdepartmental review,” she underscored.
Radicova and the future environment minister agreed that the new law will be not only aimed at old environmental burdens but also will resolve help to self-governrments in their removal. They have resumed the operation of a working group on Monday featuring not only representatives of the government and the chemical industry, employers, but also non-governmental organizations. The group led by Nagy is to prepare and try to close two basic issues. The first is responsibility of clearly defined owners of old environmental burdens. In cases that owners of these burdens are not identified, the state would potentially take over responsibility by providing state aid. The second crucial issue is a timetable for removal of the burdens which would be individual for each enterprise participating in the process. Radicova did not specify the cost of removing the old environmental burdens. She said that it would depend on the scope of the removal.
SITA