Part I — Situation overview

On Wednesday, 7 October 2026, the water level of the Danube set a negative record along almost the entire Hungarian section. According to Időkép, as quoted by Index, the level measured at Nagybajcs was 21 centimetres below the lowest level ever recorded. At one of the water authority’s gauging points, minus 85 centimetres was recorded, after minus 64 centimetres in early September. MAHART, which operates passenger shipping on the Danube, suspended its services to Szentendre, Visegrád and Esztergom until 18 October. According to the summary of the national meteorological service, HungaroMet, published by 24.hu, the January–September precipitation total of 251.7 millimetres fell 47 per cent short of the 1991–2020 average, making these the driest nine months since 1901. On the same day, Defence Minister Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi announced (24.hu) that 979 soldiers had worked on building the Paks bed sill, and that more than 22 thousand cubic metres of stone had been placed. The bed sill is a stone dam built into the riverbed that backs up the water level. Attila Aszódi, a professor at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, wrote in Portfolio that without the sill, at the flow rate of 610 cubic metres per second on 3 October, all four Paks units would have had to be shut down.

The legal side of the intervention, however, remains open. According to 24.hu, under the government decree ordering the construction it was sufficient to apply for the environmental permit by 30 September, and the authority can still refuse it afterwards, even though the first phase had already been completed on 29 August. According to Prime Minister Péter Magyar, the Austrian side lodged a complaint and the European Commission is examining the matter. On 13 August MIAK proposed an ex-post impact assessment with a binding deadline, on 23 August a decision on whether the structure is temporary or permanent, and on 4 October a numerical water-retention target in the climate law. What is new now is that emergency-based intervention has become a pattern. According to 444.hu’s report of 7 October, the sandbank in front of the ferry landing at Göd was dredged out by invoking an emergency situation. The work turned a lush stretch of riverbank, soaked by seventy springs, into a mud field.

MIAK’s reading: the rapid intervention was justified; the fault lies in the procedural order. Today every low-water intervention comes about through an individual order, a retroactive permit and without public documents. The risk is therefore borne not by the river but by legal uncertainty: the EU procedure, the permit that can be refused and the local damage.

Part II — Foundations in the literature

Three sources provide the interpretive framework. Joseph Raz, the Israeli–British legal philosopher and a defining figure of the Oxford school of legal theory, starts from the premise in his essay on the rule of law that individual official decisions are always needed. They are predictable, however, only if they are framed by general rules that are known in advance, public and stable. Elinor Ostrom, the American political economist, received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2009 for her work on the management of common resources. In Governing the Commons she distinguishes day-to-day operational rules from the collective-choice rules that frame them. An operational rule is easy to change quickly, which is why it works durably only if a higher, harder-to-change level encloses it. Nicholas Stern, the British economist who led the British Treasury’s report on the economics of climate change, writes in the summary of the Stern Review that the major infrastructure decisions of adaptation require foresight and planning. In his view, emergency preparedness is a task of the state. The three authors arrive at the same place: a rapid decision taken in a crisis is legitimate and cheap if it chooses from a framework of rules adopted in advance. The detailed discussion of the literature — by author, with quotations — can be found in section 6.4 Literature in detail.

Part III — MIAK’s concrete proposal

MIAK proposes three measurable measures. The first makes the ongoing Paks case transparent, the second screens emergency-based interventions, and the third prepares pre-assessed solutions for the next low-water season.

3.1 Publication of the permitting document package of the Paks bed sill and of the response given to the Commission (within 15 days, by 23 October)

MIAK proposes that the Ministry for the Living Environment publish the document package of the bed sill’s permitting case by 23 October. It should have four elements. First: the environmental permit application to be submitted by 30 September and its annexes, including the impact estimate concerning Natura 2000 sites. Second: the state of the procedure, that is, which authority decides, with what deadline, and whether a request for supplementary information was issued. Third: a summary of the Hungarian response to the European Commission’s inquiry, and the subject of the Austrian complaint, insofar as the Commission has communicated it. Fourth: what happens if the authority refuses the permit or makes it conditional. In that case dismantling, conversion and the bearing of costs become questions. The authority’s decision is independent: the government may not prescribe its content, but the publicity of the documents does not infringe this independence. The Commission’s examination is not in itself an infringement procedure. Such a procedure may be launched by the Commission under Article 258 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), and if the dispute is not settled, it may bring the case before the Court of Justice of the European Union. Early, full disclosure of data can forestall this step. This is the application of the principle of the A1 public-money dashboard to a structure built from public money. Raz’s yardstick (see 6.4.1) becomes tangible here: a retroactive permit becomes a source of uncertainty if nobody knows by what rule and when it will be decided.

3.2 A public register of emergency-based water interventions and a three-element screen (within 30 days, by 7 November)

The dredging at Göd shows that invoking an emergency is spreading to cases much smaller than Paks. According to 444.hu, the passenger ferry of Szigetmonostor had been out of service since early August. The village’s mayor therefore requested that the sandbank be dredged. Meanwhile, some three kilometres away as the crow flies, the car ferry ran all summer. MIAK proposes that the water management authority launch a public register by 7 November. Every riverbed intervention, dredging, temporary dam and extraordinary water abstraction ordered by invoking an emergency or a state of danger should be entered into it within 72 hours. The register should record the legal basis, the person ordering it, the location, the extent, the planned duration and the party responsible for restoration. Applying the emergency legal basis should require three conditions to be met, with written justification. First: necessity, that is, there is no working alternative within a reasonable distance. Second: proportionality and a time limit, that is, the intervention is of the extent needed to avert the danger, and it expires at a fixed date. Third: an ex-post environmental impact estimate and a restoration plan within 90 days. The 90-day catch-up deadline follows the urgency procedure of the I3 legislative impact assessment programme point. The logic there, too, is that speed does not exempt the decision from ex-post accountability. The register’s data can also appear on the public data interface of the K3 pollution monitoring.

3.3 A pre-assessed low-water intervention catalogue (before the 2027 low-water season, by 31 May 2027)

Attila Aszódi wrote in Portfolio that low-water periods may recur more frequently because of climate change. MIAK therefore proposes that next summer should not again start with individual decrees. By 31 May 2027 the water management administration should prepare a catalogue of typical low-water interventions. These include the temporary stone sill, dredging of ferry landings and the navigation channel, extending water intake works and the extraordinary drawdown of reservoirs. A prior strategic environmental assessment should be prepared for the catalogue as a whole, with a prior impact estimate for Natura 2000 sites. Each type should come with a section-by-section sensitivity map designating prohibited locations, such as the spring-fed riverbank at Göd, as well as the conditions and the restoration obligation. It should also include a completed justification template under Article 4 of the EU Water Framework Directive, which provides a narrow exception for temporary deterioration in the case of prolonged drought, and for overriding public interest in the case of new physical modifications. The catalogue should go through public consultation, so that the local governments and civil society organisations concerned give their views before the drought, not when the dredger arrives. For cross-border notification, MIAK already proposed a prior information protocol on 9 August; the catalogue is its domestic counterpart. According to Ostrom’s rule levels (see 6.4.2), the operational-level decision in a crisis remains quick. Its framework, however, is provided by a level adopted earlier, in calm times. This extends the logic of K1 measurable climate targets and MG5 community resource management to emergency interventions.

The three proposals are linked by one principle: the speed of a decision taken in an emergency should come not from skipping the procedure but from bringing it forward. The same applies to the future of the Paks site. According to HVG, Minister for Economy and Energy István Kapitány regards extending the plant’s operating life until 2052 or 2057 as a priority, while Aszódi considers a lasting raising of the Danube’s water level justified. Both are decisions spanning decades. The emergency legal basis cannot be applied to them; what applies to them is the cooling-water exposure test and the hydrological N-1 criterion proposed earlier by MIAK. In Stern’s words (see 6.4.3), a major infrastructure decision requires foresight, not improvisation.

Part IV — Expected effects and risks

Dimension Expected effect Risk
Environment Emergency interventions become visible, restoration can be demanded; sensitive stretches of riverbank are protected in advance The register places an administrative burden on the water management administration; the 72-hour deadline is hard to meet at the peak of a crisis
Energy and Paks The legal situation of the bed sill is clarified, the risk of the permit being refused can be handled in advance If the authority makes the permit conditional, conversion costs arise in the middle of the low-water season
Transport and shipping Dredging for ferries and the navigation channel can start faster, from a pre-permitted type The catalogue cannot cover every situation; an extraordinary event may fall outside it
EU relations and rule of law Early disclosure of data reduces the likelihood of an infringement procedure, and the catalogue may provide an EU model The public documents may trigger a dispute between Austrian and Hungarian experts
Local governments and local communities Those affected can give their views before the drought The screen may slow the fulfilment of local requests, testing the patience of mayors and residents

The most important dilemma is the relationship between speed and accountability. If the screen is too strict, at the time of the next emergency the decision-maker will rather not act, and the damage will be greater. If it is too loose, the emergency legal basis becomes a general loophole. MIAK therefore does not prohibit emergency-based intervention, but makes it public and time-limited. The fast track lies in the pre-assessed catalogue, while the individual order remains the exception.

The second dilemma is the timing of the Commission’s examination. Publicity may be uncomfortable in the short term, because the documents may also contain shortcomings. According to MIAK, however, a shortcoming is cheapest if the government itself uncovers it, rather than it coming to light in the course of an EU procedure.

Part V — Measurability and summary

5.1 What is worth following? (suggested KPIs)

MIAK suggests the following key performance indicators (KPIs). These are suggested indicators, not government commitments.

  • Publicity of the Paks document package. Target: by 23 October 2026, the permit application, the state of the procedure and the summary of the response given to the Commission published. It is worth following when and with what conditions the environmental authority’s decision is made.
  • Completeness of the emergency register. Target: launch by 7 November 2026. 100 per cent of the entries should have a written justification, and an ex-post impact estimate within 90 days.
  • The pre-assessed catalogue. Target: adopted by 31 May 2027, after public consultation. In the 2027 low-water season it is worth measuring what percentage of interventions came from the catalogue and how many through an individual order.
  • The outcome of the EU examination. It is worth following whether the Commission’s examination is closed without a formal infringement procedure.

5.2 Summary

MIAK’s request is addressed to the Government and the water management administration, in three steps. By 23 October: publication of the permitting documents of the Paks bed sill and of the response given to the Commission. By 7 November: a public register of every emergency-based water intervention, with conditions of necessity, proportionality and restoration. By 31 May 2027: a pre-assessed low-water intervention catalogue from which permitted solutions can be chosen in the next drought summer. MIAK does not dispute the result of the Paks intervention. It asks that the next such decision be made not with a retroactive permit and an EU examination, but according to a rule known in advance.

Of MIAK’s foundational values, transparency and accountability are at stake here. Transparency, because emergency-based decisions are today made without public documents, so neither the settlements concerned nor the neighbouring states can see their justification. Accountability, because rapid intervention remains an exception only if everyone can afterwards demand an account of its necessity and of the restoration.

Part VI — Justifications and further sources

6.1 Press framing by spectrum

In the public-affairs band, Index chose a matter-of-fact, data-reporting frame. It listed the records and the MAHART restrictions, while the second half of the article turned to the contradiction of holding the Balaton sailing races of the 2036 Olympic bid next to a drying lake. Another Index article reported on an event of the Green Policy Center. Here experts said that the domestic water balance is strongly negative, the share of irrigated land is 2–3 per cent, and a quarter of the water is lost in the network. Instead of the plan for the lowland barrages at Adony and Fajsz, they proposed a water-retention programme on the scale of the Great Plain and sediment replenishment. 24.hu approached from three directions: the HungaroMet data in a scientific frame, the bed sill through the army’s performance and the lack of permitting, and drone-based rainmaking as a technological outlook. According to the latter article, cloud seeding yields only 5–10 per cent additional precipitation even under suitable conditions, and only where there are already clouds.

In the economic band, Portfolio published an opinion piece by Attila Aszódi, which quantified the technical result of the bed sill and argued for a lasting raising of the Danube’s water level. In a podcast, Tamás Petőházi, president of the Hungarian Grain Growers’ Association, spoke of a loss of HUF 500–600 billion in the arable sector. In the left-liberal band, HVG wrote about Lake Velence and the extension of the Paks operating life. In the report on the lake, Viktória Bögi, parliamentary state secretary and deputy minister of the Ministry for the Living Environment, ruled out replenishment from karst water and promised a “forced march” without a quick miracle. The paywalled article on the nuclear power plant highlighted that the government’s confidence in nuclear energy persists despite the summer crisis. 444.hu’s report is the only one that showed the local environmental price of emergency-based intervention. The report contrasted the dredging at Göd with the car ferry running nearby. The full text of the article is paywalled; the blog relies on the publicly readable part. From the conservative band (Magyar Nemzet, Mandiner), MIAK’s press monitor recorded no article on this topic on that day.

6.2 Facts and data

Water level, precipitation and impacts (according to the sources):

Data Value Source
Precipitation, January–September 2026 251.7 mm, 47% below the 1991–2020 average (471.1 mm); the driest period since 1901 HungaroMet, 24.hu
Precipitation, September 2026 15.1 mm national average, 74% below normal; the seventh driest September in 125 years HungaroMet, 24.hu
Danube, Nagybajcs, 7 October 2026 21 cm below the lowest level ever measured Időkép, Index
Water authority gauging point −64 cm in early September, −85 cm on 7 October Water authority, Index
MAHART services to Szentendre, Visegrád and Esztergom suspended until 18 October; the daytime Hop-On service in Budapest does not call at Margaret Island Index
Flow rate at the Paks cross-section 3 August: 650 m³/s (Paks gauge −140 cm); 11 September: 630 m³/s; 3 October: 610 m³/s Attila Aszódi, Portfolio
Paks gauge on 5 October −118 cm; estimate without the sill: as low as −160 cm, which would have required shutting down every unit Attila Aszódi, Portfolio
Paks units 3 of 4 at nominal output, the 4th offline for scheduled maintenance Attila Aszódi, Portfolio
Construction of the bed sill 979 soldiers, more than 28 thousand working hours, more than 22 thousand m³ of stone placed, more than 38 thousand tonnes of stone received and handled Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi, 24.hu
Permitting under the government decree the environmental permit could be applied for by 30 September; the first phase was completed on 29 August 24.hu (citing Átlátszó)
Arable sector 2026 HUF 500–600 billion loss; winter wheat 4.1 million t (1 million t less), winter barley 1.5 million t (300 thousand t less); a loss of HUF 150–200 thousand per hectare compared with HUF 100 thousand in 2022 Tamás Petőházi, Portfolio
Lake Velence Agárd gauge around 4.5 cm; on Gárdony’s paid beaches some 90 thousand guests in 2020, 1,500 in 2026 HVG
Launching domestic water replenishment some HUF 1,000 billion according to the estimate of geophysicist Gábor Timár 24.hu
Paks operating-life extension the aim is 2,000 MW generation until 2052 or 2057 István Kapitány, HVG

The EU legal framework (MIAK’s summary based on the public texts of the legislation):

  • The Environmental Impact Assessment Directive (2011/92/EU, as amended by Directive 2014/52/EU) allows a case-by-case exemption for projects serving solely the response to civil emergencies. In exceptional cases a specific project may also be exempted, but this requires considering another form of assessment, informing the public and notifying the Commission before the consent is granted. The rule on transboundary effects applies irrespective of the exemption.
  • Article 4 of the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) does not, under conditions, regard temporary deterioration due to prolonged drought as an infringement. For new physical modifications it requires an overriding public interest and a justification set out in the river basin management plan.
  • Article 6 of the Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC) prescribes an appropriate assessment for interventions affecting Natura 2000 sites, compensatory measures in exceptional cases, and informing the Commission.

6.3 Policy dimensions

  • Environment and climate (programme points) — the emergency register and the pre-assessed catalogue are an extension of the measurable climate targets (K1) and of the public environmental data interface (K3); the Paks exposure is part of energy-market shock resilience (K7), and forecasting low-water frequency is a task for the climate-economy model (K9);
  • Agriculture (programme points) — because of the HUF 500–600 billion arable loss and the extraordinary drawdown of reservoirs, the actors of community water management (MG5) are key participants in the consultation on the catalogue;
  • Transport and infrastructure (affected policy area) — the MAHART restrictions, the suspension of passenger ferries and the dredging of the navigation channel provide the transport types of the catalogue;
  • Economy (programme points) — the energy-price shock preparedness plan (G25), community resource management (G28) and the Drucker audit, that is, the ex-post impact assessment of measures comparing expected and actual results (G20).

6.4 Literature in detail

6.4.1 Joseph Raz: The Authority of Law

Raz describes the rule of law as a formal virtue, which concerns not the goodness of the law’s content but its predictability. Among the principles he derives from the rule of law, the first is that the law should be prospective, public and clear. The second is that it should be relatively stable, and the third is that particular legal decisions should be guided by public, stable, clear and general rules. Raz does not deny the need for particular orders. In his view, the executive and the authorities need flexibility, which is why they issue particular instructions and permits. These, however, do not undermine the rule of law if more durable general rules set their limits. Raz particularly emphasises that a graver form of violating the rule of law is frustrated expectations. This occurs when people build on the existing law and the law is then changed retroactively. In the Paks and Göd cases this yardstick is twofold. An individual emergency order is not in itself a rule-of-law failing, but a permit that can be refused afterwards creates exactly the uncertainty Raz warns against. The proposed catalogue provides the general framework within which the next individual decision will be predictable.

📖 Source: Joseph Raz: The Authority of Law — Essays on Law and Morality (Oxford University Press, 1979)

6.4.2 Elinor Ostrom: Governing the Commons

Ostrom divides the rules of institutions managing common resources into three nested levels. Operational rules govern day-to-day decisions: who may use how much and when, and who monitors. Collective-choice rules determine who may shape the operational rules and how. And the constitutional level determines who may shape the rules of collective choice. According to Ostrom’s observation, the operational rule is the easiest to change, and the deeper levels are increasingly harder. Stability is therefore provided by the higher levels, flexibility by the lower one. Translated to the management of the Danube’s low water: a decision on dredging or dam construction taken in an emergency is at the operational level. It must be quick, but it is sustainable only if it is framed by a system of rules adopted jointly in advance. This framework is missing today, so every emergency decision is at the same time an act of rule-making. The catalogue in 3.3 fills in this missing collective-choice level.

📖 Source: Elinor Ostrom: Governing the Commons — The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Cambridge University Press, 1990)

6.4.3 Nicholas Stern: The Economics of Climate Change — The Stern Review

Stern’s summary distinguishes autonomous adaptation, when households and firms respond to market and environmental signals, from adaptation that requires planning. He places major infrastructure decisions in the latter category:

“Some aspects of adaptation, such as major infrastructure decisions, will require greater foresight and planning.” […] “Adaptation action should be integrated into development policy and planning at every level.”

In other words: certain elements of adaptation, such as major infrastructure decisions, require greater foresight and planning, and adaptation must be built into development policy and planning at every level. Among the tasks of government, Stern specifically names long-term policy for climate-sensitive public goods, including the protection of natural resources and emergency preparedness. Applied to the Paks bed sill: the technical success of the intervention does not replace the planning framework. If low-water periods become more frequent because of climate change, as Aszódi also claims, then emergency intervention is not an exception but a recurring task. This must be prepared for in advance.

📖 Source: Nicholas Stern: The Economics of Climate Change — The Stern Review (Cambridge University Press / HM Treasury, 2007)

6.5 International comparison

The closest parallel is Romania. According to Attila Aszódi’s piece published in Portfolio, the Cernavodă nuclear power plant is still not generating because of the low water level, and experts there expect that it will not in October either. The cooling water there arrives through a canal fed from a side branch, so a single riverbed-closing structure does not solve the problem. MIAK’s August analyses also presented the Romanian barge sinking and temporary dam. Taken together, the experience of the two countries shows that along the Danube, low-water riverbed intervention has become a recurring tool of adaptation. A pre-developed, documented order for applying the exception rules of EU environmental law is therefore needed.

The limits of technological alternatives are shown by the report described by 24.hu, citing the BBC. The American company Rainmaker used drones to deliver silver iodide into clouds in Alaska. The estimated surplus over an area of 259 square kilometres was some 0.254 millimetres of rain. The principle of cloud seeding also appears in the operation of the Hungarian hail mitigation system, JÉGER. According to 24.hu, however, the method does not work without clouds, and even under favourable conditions it increases precipitation by only 5–10 per cent. Its critics therefore consider financing water retention to be the higher priority.

Environment and climate

  • K1 — Measurable climate targets
  • K3 — Pollution monitoring
  • K7 — Energy-market shock resilience
  • K9 — Domestic integrated climate-economy model

Agriculture

  • MG5 — Community resource management framework

Economy

  • G20 — Economic-policy impact assessment system (Drucker audit)
  • G25 — Energy-price shock preparedness plan
  • G28 — Framework for community resource management

Justice

  • I3 — Legislative impact assessment

Transparency and anti-corruption policy

  • A1 — Public-money dashboard

Proposed new programme point: Public register of emergency-based interventions and a pre-assessed low-water intervention catalogue — for the Environment and climate area.

6.7 List of sources

Press sources (MIAK press monitor, 8 October 2026 — topic 4):

Knowledge-base references (literature):

  • 📖 Joseph Raz: The Authority of Law — Essays on Law and Morality
  • 📖 Elinor Ostrom: Governing the Commons — The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action
  • 📖 Nicholas Stern: The Economics of Climate Change — The Stern Review

MIAK internal materials:

  • MIAK policy area: Environment and climate (programme points; programme point ID: K1, K3, K7, K9)
  • MIAK policy area: Agriculture (programme points; programme point ID: MG5)
  • MIAK policy area: Transport and infrastructure (affected policy area)
  • MIAK policy area: Economy (programme points; programme point ID: G20, G25, G28)
  • MIAK policy area: Justice (programme points; programme point ID: I3)
  • MIAK policy area: Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points; programme point ID: A1)
  • MIAK press monitor, 8 October 2026 — topic 4, score: 87/100

Supplementary public data sources (where used):

  • Directive 2011/92/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council on environmental impact assessment (text as amended by Directive 2014/52/EU)
  • Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (Water Framework Directive)
  • Council Directive 92/43/EEC (Habitats Directive)
  • Article 258 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU)
  • Suggested data source for the 3.2 register and the 3.3 catalogue: the water level and flow data of the General Directorate of Water Management, HungaroMet’s monthly climate summaries, MAHART’s timetable changes

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