Hungarian news portal Qubit published a detailed summary of the public discussion Budapest During and After the Pandemic, organized by the Istvan Bibo Free University, operating within the CEU Democracy Institute, with the support of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

The discussion was the first in a new series of public debates, aimed at presenting current cross-cutting policy issues through a moderated discussion by experts.

The panelists, Ada Amon, Head of the Climate and Environment Department of the Mayor's Office, Istvan Schneller, former chief architect of Budapest, Gergely Simon from Greenpeace Hungary, Levente Polyak from Center for Contemporary Architecture, and the moderator, Arpad Szabo, Head of the Department of Urbanism at Budapest University of Technology and Economics, sought answers to questions like

• How did the COVID-19 epidemic affect Budapest's environmental plans and objectives, what lessons can be learned from this?
• In this situation, how can the steps needed to mitigate climate change be enforced?
• What adaptation challenges the capital has to meet in the future, and what kind of cooperation and resources are needed to manage them.
• How does Budapest cope with air pollution or potential heatwaves in the future, water scarcity?
• What are the most important aspects of environmentally friendly transport development?
• Are the sustainability developments in Budapest slow?

Read the summary (in Hungarian) here.