Civil Protection in Europe: Hungary

Term of disaster in Hungary:

Under the term “disaster” the Hungarian state understands the occurrence of a damaging event, that in terms of magnitude and its expected consequences substantially exceeds the magnitude of the daily damaging events and principally pose a danger to human life, material values and the customary supplies of the population to a large extent.

Statutory regulation:

The regulation of the Ministry of the Interior No. 48/1999 (XII. 15.) was published within the framework of the statutory regulations which regulates the execution of the civil protection law (No. LXXIV, 1999). § 10 Par. (1) Point (c) of the regulations stipulates the national strategy for combating the implications of disasters. This is based on the analysis of possible disaster situations in Hungary. The OKF (state civil protection authority) is responsible for civil protection in Hungary.

Strategic elements:

• Drawing up of statutory regulations, standards and directives, which also meet the requirements of the EU.
• Design of the pre-requisites for institutions, organisations and stipulation of personnel stocks, which are necessary for asserting the system of defence.
• Ensuring of Human Resources with the required maximum stocks and with the required willingness to defend.
• Establishment of the most effective capability for prevention and reaction.
• Reduction in the damages with already occurred danger and disaster situations.
• New bases have to be created for the complex requirements of fire prevention and the technical rescue.
• Creation of the pre-requisites for harmonised information channels.
• The civil rights which are guaranteed by the constitution must be safeguarded to a large extent during the preparation and the civil protection measures.
• The international cooperation on the field of preparation, assistance and compensation is to be developed dynamically.
• Further development of the financial background, which serves civil protection and the comprehensive integration of the economy into this activity.

Organisation:

There has been an organised civil protection in Hungary since January 2000 the tasks of which comprise preparatory and re-construction measures as well as measures during acute dangerous situations. The civil protection is organised in three stages: It is broken down into a central, territorial and local level. The convergence to the uniform five-stage European administration system is being set-up. The Civil Protection cooperates closely with other state bodies, services, civil organi-sations and the local self-administration.

Civil protection plans:

The OKF (state civil protection ) and its other bodies as well as the organisations, which assist in civil protection, have disaster defence plans. These plans contain details about the alarming of the operation units, the capacity of the paramedic troops and the rescue and patient transport ambulance units as well as the availability of these units. In addition, measure plans are available for cases of various dangerous situations, e.g. flood, storm damages, nuclear incident or chemical disasters.

Funding body:

A separate fund is available in the state budget for civil protection.