GABČÍKOVO hydro-electric power plant on the Danube River, a Slovak part of the Slovak-Hungarian Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros project, marks the 20th anniversary of its operation this October. To mark the occasion Bratislava hosted a two-day international conference about the project, the TASR newswire reported.
The history of the project, which is now the biggest hydro-electric power station in Slovakia, dates back to 1977 when the then Czechoslovakia and Hungary signed an agreement to build a Danube twin-dam project to produce electricity, improve navigability and enhance flood prevention.
In 1989, when Slovakia’s part of the project was 90 percent complete, Hungary at first suspended works and subsequently abandoned the project entirely in 1992. Slovakia, as part of Czechoslovakia, concluded its part of the project with the Gabčíkovo and Čunovo dams within a substitute solution called C Variant.
Slovakia and Hungary later submitted the case to the International Court of Justice, which ruled in September 1997 that the original agreement from 1977 is valid and that both countries violated their legal obligations. The verdict has not been fully implemented yet and Slovak-Hungarian negotiations over the matter are continuing.
