February 6, 2008

Austrian authorities are not honoring the bilateral agreement signed last summer on cleaning up the Rába River, Environment Minister Gábor Fodor told reporters in Szentgotthárd on Tuesday. Our patience is at an end, he declared.

Pollution is continuing to flow along the Rába because the Wollsdorf tannery has not upgraded its technology to reduce pollution emissions, as promised, Fodor said, unlike other tanneries in Jennersdorf and Feldbach.

Fodor remarked that Austrian authorities have failed to disclose any information neither about the expected pollution nor about what measures they had taken against the polluters, contrary to an agreement signed last summer. He said he will take up the issue with his Austrian counterpart.

On another matter, Fodor vowed to turn to the EU if an Austrian waste incinerator is built near the Hungarian border.