Decision 45 COM 7B.56

Budapest, including the Banks of the Danube, the Buda Castle Quarter and Andrássy Avenue (Hungary) (C 400bis)

The World Heritage Committee,

1. Having examined Document WHC/23/45.COM/7B.Add,
2. Recalling Decision 44 COM 7B.49 adopted at its extended 44th session (Fuzhou/online, 2021),
3. Welcomes the modifications and amendments concerning the World Heritage Design Guide, the Hungarian World Heritage Council and the World Heritage Complex Impact Assessment as well as plans to conduct Heritage Impact Assessments (HIA) supplemented by a Visual Impact Assessments and requests the State Party to conduct HIAs in accordance with the Guidance and Toolkit for Impact Assessments in a World Heritage Context as a pre-requisite for all development projects within and around the World Heritage property and submit them to the World Heritage Centre for review by the Advisory Bodies;
4. Acknowledges the progress made regarding the development of the management plan and the development of the online platform ‘Budapest World Heritage Attributes System’ as an innovative tool to visualize attributes of the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) and welcomes public consultations organised by the State Party during the preparation of the management plan;
5. Reiterates its request to the State Party to finalise the management plan as soon as possible, including details of the protective measures and regulatory regimes, and to submit the final draft of the plan to the World Heritage Centre for review by the Advisory Bodies prior to its adoption;
6. Also acknowledges the State Party’s efforts to document and monitor the current state of conservation of the property, including by using a geospatial database, and invites the State Party to provide further information to the World Heritage Centre on the ways in which the planned rules for the protection and management of the OUV will align with the Operational Guidelines;
7. Regrets that all on-going and planned work on the National Hauszmann Programme (NHP) has not been halted as requested by the Committee, that no information has yet been provided that would allow a full understanding of the scope of the entire project or its full impact, and nor has a Conservation Plan been submitted;
8. Considers that the continuation of the NHP works has thus been negatively impacting the state of conservation of the property, with potential cumulative negative impacts on its OUV, including its authenticity and integrity, as noted in the last Committee decision;
9. Reiterates its request to the State Party to provide to the World Heritage Centre, as a matter of urgency, comprehensive information on the NHP to allow an understanding of the scope of the entire project;
10. Reiterates its concern that the works in the context of the NHP are still ongoing, that the state of conservation of the property has been negatively impacted by planned reconstruction and its full potential impacts; reiterates its request to the State Party to consider halting all ongoing and planned works at the Buda Castle Quarter to allow dialogue on how the project might be modified;
11. Urges the State Party to re-start the online ICOMOS advisory assistance for the Buda Castle Quarter, originally initiated in January 2022, to allow the State Party to benefit from this process over an extended period of time and to allow meaningful collaboration on the NHP between the State Party, the Advisory Bodies and the World Heritage Centre based on full documentation on the entire project;
12. Requests the State Party to submit to the World Heritage Centre, by 1 February 2024, an updated report on the state of conservation of the property and the implementation of the above, for examination by the World Heritage Committee at its 46th session, considering that the urgent conservation needs of this property require a broad mobilization to preserve its Outstanding Universal Value, including the possible inscription on the List of World Heritage in Danger.