PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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Hungarian National ISPA Strategy documents were intimately related with the release of
the new government’s national economic development plan (“Széchenyi Plan”). This
document deserves some detailed attention. In particular, a closer look at the
government’s Széchenyi Plan will explain why the initial draft ISPA Transport Sector
Strategy of June 1999 (prepared by the Hungarian Transport Ministry) was completely
changed and a totally different ISPA priority list presented to the EU about a year later.
In 1998, national elections were then won by the center-right parties, 27
who
agreed that the national motorway program should be accelerated, but who had their own,
very particular ideas about how the construction program should be financed. In 1999,
the new coalition government under Prime Minister Victor Orbán adopted a ten-year
motorway expressway program which was accelerated to seven years in 2000. In the
spring of 2000, the Economic Ministry then presented a national economic development
plan, the so-called Széchenyi Plan (GM 2000). One of the cornerstones of the Plan was
an ambitious expressway construction program which in turn was centered around an
immediate expansion of the M3 and M7 highways (to be completed until the end of
2002) as well as the construction of the Szekszárd Danube bridge (until mid-2003).
Additionally, the plan also proposed the modernization of three railway lines along key
Helsinki corridors along Zalaegerszeg-Boda, Budapest-Cegléd-Szolno-Lökösháza and
Budapest-Hegyshalom as well as a regional airport development subprogram. Tables 8.3
and 8.4 list the proposed measures in the new seven year plan.
27 The new government was formed on July 8, 1998 by three parties: the Fidesz Hungarian Civic Party
(Fidesz-MPP), the Independent Smallholder's Party (FKgP) and the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF).