By Zoltán Dujisin
BUDAPEST, Apr 2 2007 (IPS)

Hungary’s plans to host a NATO radar are being met with stiff resistance by locals who cite health and environmental fears. But their municipal representatives are seemingly yielding to government pressure.

The radar station is to be built in Southern Transdanubia, on a site called Tübes Hill.

The radar would be integrated into the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) early warning defence system. NATO officially says it is indifferent to the exact location, as long as Hungary fulfils its obligations as a member state.

Citizen groups are warning that the radar and the radiation it produces will endanger nearby natural habitats, human health and the water supply, and hurt tourism.

The planned radar was also criticised from the military point of view for its location at low height. Some even claim its original purpose goes back to the Balkans wars of the early 1990s when the region’s geopolitics was considerably different.

The proposed station would be located in a forested park area only one kilometre from inhabited land and four kilometres from the centre of Pécs, a historic university town of 160,000 people which is part of the World Heritage List, and has been chosen as European Capital of Culture for 2010. Pécs is about 200km south of capital Budapest.

Hungary’s ruling socialist-liberal coalition claims the radar will protect the country’s air space and help air traffic. The Defence Ministry says radiation will not harm local people.

“Regulations say radiation levels will be safe, but they are not based on long-term experiments, and the radar could be here for 20 years,” Alex Solyom, an activist from the Civic Movement for the Mecsek, the hills and mountains surrounding Pécs, told IPS.

Following pressure from grassroots movements who gathered some 18,000 signatures against the radar station, 94 percent of Pécs’ population voted against the station in a referendum Mar. 4.

The referendum may force the government to find a new location for the radar, and the Hungarian press speculates that discussions have already been held with NATO on this. But the 34 percent turnout prevents the referendum result from becoming legally binding.

Through an official statement, the Defence Ministry said the apathy of 66 percent of Pécs’ population meant “the overwhelming majority of voters saw no obstacle to the construction of the radar station.”

The mayor and the representatives of all parties in the local government had vowed to comply with the result of the referendum even if it failed to reach the 50 percent threshold.

The locals’ hopes were betrayed when on Mar. 23 the socialist-liberal majority in the city council rejected a resolution calling for modifications of local regulations which would have allowed for an immediate stop to the construction of the radar.

Socialist councillors, while insisting they are not pleased with the project, decided to postpone their decision, and promised to try to convince the government to move the radar station back to the originally intended location, the nearby Zengo Hill.

The Defence Ministry is entitled by law to grant itself permits, and has already initiated the necessary procedures with a view on beginning construction of the radar.

“The local law is supposed to be changed eventually to prevent the building, but by the time it is changed it won’t be enough to stop the building,” Solyom told IPS.

The government claims it will uphold environmental standards and consult with local authorities in Pécs, but it has been criticised for failing to provide information, and for not holding consultations with either the public or NGOs.

“It’s troubling that all this is being done without consulting the population,” Solyom said.

Previously the government intended to build the radar at the Zengo Hill, some 15km away from Tübes Hill, but it backed down in February 2004 following strong pressure from environmentalist groups.

Several activists, supported by Hungarian President Lászlo Solyom, were vindicated by the Supreme Court of Hungary, which declared that the location chosen for the radar was inappropriate as it would degrade the environment and negatively affect the quality of life of Hungarians.

The environmentalists’ action, with activists climbing the Zengo hill peak and chaining themselves to trees, received unprecedented media attention in Hungary.

But some in Pécs now feel abandoned by those who prevented the Zengo radar from materialising since the new location was announced in November 2005.

“For us this radar is more harmful than the one in Zengo, which we also opposed, but it seems paradoxical to take the radar from a natural reserve where it would have environmental effects to an area where instead there will be effects on human health,” Solyom told IPS.

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