In its latest report on the navigability of the Danube, the State Audit Office of Hungary (SAO) pointed out that increasingly extreme fluctuations in the river’s water level pose a risk to ensuring navigation and to exploiting the river’s economic potential. However, improving navigation conditions, dredging shoals, raising the level of the deepened riverbed, and eliminating bottlenecks in the waterway also require careful consideration of environmental, nature conservation, and water resource protection concerns.
The purpose of the SAO’s audit was to assess whether the measures taken to maintain and improve safe navigation on the Danube, as well as the domestic and EU funds used for this purpose, contributed to achieving the requirements and recommendations set out in international regulations. The SAO also examined whether environmental protection, sustainability, and water management considerations were taken into account alongside economic policy objectives.
The report highlighted that, due to the lack of a precise definition of the sectoral strategic objectives concerning navigation on the Danube, there was no systematic approach to managing factors that threaten navigability. Furthermore, in some cases, the domestic legal framework defined navigability criteria more strictly than international standards. Ensuring compliance with these criteria poses ecological and water resource protection risks due to potential river regulation interventions that may become necessary. According to the SAO, meeting the European Union’s requirements is a challenge in itself for Hungary, as the Hungarian section of the river contains a significant number of so-called critical river sections, even in international comparison.
At the same time, the audit also revealed that the audited water management authorities carried out their waterway maintenance tasks to the extent of the resources available to them, although shortages in staffing and equipment occasionally jeopardized the smooth operation and quality of their work. Another challenge was that no dedicated budget appropriations were allocated in the central budget for waterway maintenance.
Overall, the projects implemented with EU funding have contributed to improving certain aspects of navigability, particularly to the expansion of navigation services. However, several projects failed to achieve the expected results due to inadequate planning and implementation delays. The failure to achieve the desired results can be attributed to shortcomings in the financial and professional foundations. In addition, no measures aimed at improving the physical parameters of navigability were carried out on the international waterway section of the Danube during the period under review.
Based on the findings of the audit, the SAO formulated recommendations, including the development of a strategy for navigation and waterway development, the review of legal provisions establishing navigability parameters, the full implementation and completion of projects related to the development of the Danube waterway, the allocation of funds in the central budget specifically earmarked for the maintenance of the Danube waterway and the establishment of the related resource allocation, as well as a review of the availability of the human resources necessary for the maintenance of the Danube waterway.
The full report in Hungarian is available here.