Slovakia has asked EU experts to help find a solution to their 18 year dispute with Hungary over the Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros waterworks project on the Danube River.
The Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros project was laid out in the ‘Budapest Treaty’, signed between Hungary and Czechoslovakia in 1977. The project stipulated that a hydroelectric dam would be built in Gabčíkovo, Czechoslovakia, and a second about 100 kilometres downstream in Nagymaros, Hungary. It was hoped that the two dams would work together to provide electrical power and limit flooding.
Hungary pulled out of the project in 1989 and Czechoslovakia responded by switching to a smaller alternative plan.
Hungary terminated the treaty in 1992 against the will of the Slovak Republic and in 1993 the case was brought to the International Court of Justice in Hague, which ruled that both sides had breached the contract and that the contract was still valid.
Slovak and Hungarian experts met to discuss the issue on March 7 and concluded that the results of the negotiations still had not brought satisfactory results.
The head of the Slovak delegation, Dominik Kocinger, said that Slovakia wants experts appointed by the European Union Commission to take part in judging alternative implementations of Hague’s verdict.
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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