Our mission

The Hungarian Environmental Partnership Foundation aims at enhancing the development of an environmentally aware, participatory democratic society and institutional system by strengthening and supporting the civil environmental movements.

The foundation promotes the development of the environmental movement trough providing grants, training, fellowships and technical assistance where necessary.

Civil Vision – comprehensive nonprofit legal reform concept (Nilda Bullain – Peter Holchacker - Veronika Mora): as the strategic cornerstone of our work, this study addresses the overall legal environment of the Hungarian civil sector in three main chapters:

• the autonomy of the civil nonprofit sector
• the relations between the civil nonprofit sector and the state (administration)
• the relations between the civil nonprofit and the business (economic) sector

The concept – after a yearlong preparatory phase, with broad participation of experts and the NGOs themselves (see also below) – was published early 2005 in a book format in 1000 copies (and also translated into English). It was sent (in several rounds) to the following decision makers and stakeholders:

• Members of Parliament (385)
• Relevant Ministers and ministry civil servants (Finance, Justice, Home, Social Affairs, Environment etc.)
• Central authorities and administrative bodies (treasury, tax authority etc.)
• Party leaders
• District courts and attorney offices
• County libraries
• Relevant research institutes
• County civil service centers (20)
• Umbrella NGOs

We received written feedback from many of the above (over 30 instances), and also initiated personal meetings and discussions with the most important ones. As a result of these, by now we can say “Civil Vision” became a household name in the relevant agencies – best reflected in the content of the new governmental guidance document to the cooperation with civil society, which incorporated many of its concrete suggestions, sometimes in a word-to-word identical manner.

However, since the Civil Vision itself is broad strategic document, in order to operationalize its findings, more detailed research was needed in several areas, resulting in further publications:

The KCR dimension – Legal obstacles of civil participation in the provision of public services (dr. Endre Bíró): the first study in this row published also in 2005 by the NOSZA program, and supported by HEPF, dealt with the present legal environment and the problems of outsourcing state services. It was again distributed in the above, though narrower circle, and was successful in drawing the new government’s attention to this problem (which is connected to the cost-efficient use of state funds), and contributed to formulating the draft bill on public contracts (see above).

Court practices in the registration of associations (dr. Sándor Fülöp): the study summarizing the findings of the “test registration” exercise pinpoints the most important inconsistencies and geographical differences in the practice of county administrative courts when registering NGOs. The book, published in early 2006 by the NOSZA program, and supported by HEPF was distributed mostly among county courts and attorney offices as well as law clinics and other expert organizations. It resulted in a successful conference with these stakeholders in June 2006 (see below).

Local Interest – Local Values: guide to the cooperation between NGOs and local governments (Nilda Bullain): the last in the row of our publications, finished in 2007 targets municipal decision-makers and civil servants, presenting best practices as well as providing concrete guidance and tips to improving cooperation and partnership mostly in the local level, covering all important fields (financing, public participation, joint projects). The book, printed again in 1000 copies is distributed primarily among

• relevant parliamentary committees (4)
• relevant ministries (Home Affairs, Social, Justice, Finance)
• parties
• municipal federations and associations (4)
• relevant professional journals
• county administrative offices (supervising the lawful conduct of municipalities)
• local governments of most important cities and towns
• county civil service centers
• umbrella NGOs

Reports on the Openness of the Planning of National Strategic Documents: the Working Group for the Openness of the National Development Plan have issued regular reports since May 2005 analyzing and commenting on the public consultation process during the preparation of the documents required to receive EU structural and cohesion funding during the 2007-13 budgetary period. Being an active member of this group, we have contributed to each of the 4 reports published until now (the 5th being under preparation), and also financially supported 2 of them.

Statements and position papers: having continuously monitored legislation relevant from the civil society point of view, we have issued numerous papers and comments on these. Besides sending them to the relevant agencies we published the most important 10 ones on our website (and also often issued related press releases).