The opposition Jobbik party said on Wednesday that it has filed an environment pollution report with authorities over communal waste drifting on the Hungarian section of the Tisza river and its tributaries, the Kraszna and Szamos rivers, near Hungary’s eastern borders.
Speaking at a press conference in front of Ukraine’s consular office in Nyíregyháza, in eastern Hungary, Béla Adorján, a councillor of the local county assembly, said Jobbik had clear evidence that the waste causing continued pollution on the rivers over the past several years originates in neighbouring Romania and Ukraine.
He said “courtesy moves in diplomacy” had led nowhere in the past twenty years, adding that government programmes of removing drift waste from the river had only been “ad-hoc emergency steps” and had not resulted in the eradication of the pollution.
Csaba Gyüre, a lawmaker for the party, said that under international treaties, Hungary could have sought reimbursement of waste removal costs by the two neighbouring countries, but had failed to make use of that option.
featured image: cleaning of Tisza at Vásárosnamény; via Attila Balázs/MTI
