CALL BY THE OMBUDSMAN FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS IN THE MATTER OF SMOG ALERTS

With the winter season approaching, the Ombudsman for future generations, having drawn the conclusions from the experiences of previous winters, has requested the Mayor of Budapest to implement the full range of restrictive measures aimed at improving information for the citizens of Budapest and reducing air pollution in the event of a smog alert.

Submissions to the Ombudsman's Office suggest that there were cases when the Municipality of Budapest in its smog warnings did not call the citizens' attention to taking all possible measures aimed at avoiding and reducing air pollution, also specified in the capital's smog alert ordinance. For instance, when a smog warning (information phase) was issued in late January, the announcement only called on the children, the elderly and the ill to avoid staying outdoors and/or ventilating in the vicinity of roads with heavily polluted air. However, no calls were made to reduce or suspend individual car use, to use public transport instead, or to reduce unjustified idling of motor vehicles.

Last November, in his announcement of the smog alert (action phase), the Mayor banned only the use of the most polluting cars, marked with a black environmental decal, accounting only for four percent of the total number of motor vehicles in Budapest, while the prevailing smog alert ordinance would have made it possible, in order to alleviate the smog situation, to extend the ban to motor vehicles with red decals, also causing significant gas dust pollution, as well. Even the announcement of the action-phase smog alert, banning the use of cars with black decals, was made with a one-day delay; the announcement did not make any reference to the necessity of voluntary restriction of vehicle use.

In his letter to István Tarlós, Marcel Szabó reminded the Mayor of the fact that in Budapest traffic accounts for 40 percent of the gas dust pollution during the fall-winter period. That is why, in order to enforce the citizens' rights to physical and mental health and to a healthy environment, he requested the Mayor to avail himself of his statutory right to impose restrictions on the use of the widest range of vehicles and to inform the citizens on all methods of reducing pollution specified in the relevant ordinance.