Concession contract renegotiation within weeks: first phase of the MOHU review complete, MOHU responds

Concession contract renegotiation could begin within weeks – that was the message from László Gajdos, Hungary’s Minister for the Living Environment, on the public broadcaster’s M1 Híradó evening news on Thursday, 15 October, where he confirmed that the first phase of the review of MOHU has been completed. The next day, MOHU welcomed the announcement on its social media page and stressed that household waste collection is running without disruption.

Its statement, however, also contained an unusually sharp message: according to the company, an unnamed industry organisation is spreading unfounded information about its agreements with local service providers, which MOHU says could even endanger security of supply. Here is what was said, what may lie behind the dispute, and what to watch in the coming weeks.

In short: Concession contract renegotiation could start within weeks, according to László Gajdos, now that the first phase of the MOHU review is complete – and the minister says recycling rather than landfilling must become a cornerstone of the agreement. MOHU promises cooperation and uninterrupted service, while publicly calling on an industry organisation to back up its claims about the agreements with facts.

What did László Gajdos say on M1 Híradó?

According to the M1 Híradó report of 15 October, the minister made three points:

• the first phase of the MOHU review has been completed;
• renegotiation of the 35-year concession agreement could begin within weeks;
• far more waste is landfilled in Hungary than should be, instead of being recycled.

Gajdos said the goal is not to build landfills but to recycle waste. He called this a cornerstone of the agreement, because – in his words – it has not been implemented the way it should have been.

The message is not new. On 8 October at Hungexpo, at the conference “Landfilling – the final solution?”, the minister already explained that in 2024, 53 percent of municipal waste was landfilled and only about a third was recovered – as we reported in our earlier analysis. What is new is the timing: in August, talks were said to be starting “soon”; now the minister is talking about a start within weeks.

MOHU’s response: cooperation and unchanged service

The first part of MOHU’s statement is decidedly conciliatory. The company:

• welcomed the minister’s confirmation that the first phase of the review has been completed;
• said it continues to cooperate with the government while carrying out its duties as before, collecting and transporting waste together with local service providers;
• said preparations for cooperation in the next period are on track: it has already reached agreement with a significant share of local waste management companies, while talks are still ongoing in other parts of the country;
• stressed that household service is continuous and uninterrupted, and that collection schedules are unchanged.

This tone is consistent with MOHU’s earlier position. Back in early September, when the government decided on the review, the company said it, too, considered a rethink of the complex concession system necessary – in other words, MOHU is not fighting the negotiations, but the terms of them.

Who is MOHU targeting, and what is the dispute about?

The second part of the statement is confrontational. MOHU says an industry organisation is spreading unfounded information about the agreements, which could endanger security of supply. The company called on the organisation to stop – or, if it maintains its position, to present it publicly, backed by professional arguments and facts.

MOHU did not name anyone, and several organisations have been mentioned in the press. According to information obtained by dontwasteit.hu, the dispute has arisen between MOHU and one of the associations representing local public service providers, over the draft subcontracting agreements for 2027.

The regional coordinator system is ending

MOHU has begun negotiating next year’s contracts and has publicly stated that the regional coordinator system will end in waste collection and transport: in future, it will contract directly with the companies that physically carry out the service. The regional coordinators appointed in 2023 sat between the concession company and local firms: they held the contracts with MOHU and passed the fees on to the actual service providers. The business daily Világgazdaság reported back in June that these three-and-a-half-year contracts expire at the end of this year and that MOHU did not intend to renew them. Simplifying the subcontractor network was also part of MOHU’s own proposal package, as we noted in our article on the concession review.

In practice, this means local public service companies must sign new contracts directly with MOHU – with new fees and conditions – by the end of the year. Where that fails, service in early January could genuinely be in question. That is why MOHU is talking about security of supply, and why any public claim about the state of the agreements is so sensitive.

What are service providers objecting to?

According to our information, MOHU sent the draft contract to prospective subcontractors under a confidentiality obligation. The association’s position, as communicated to its members, is not public, so we summarise only its main objections:

• One-sidedness: in the association’s view, the draft is more one-sided than ever, placing rights almost exclusively with the concession company and obligations with the subcontractors.
• Letters of intent: the association expects MOHU to push for letters of intent before the contracts are signed, as the negotiations drag on. Since the government will soon take up the future of the concession, MOHU presumably wants to show by then that it has agreements covering much of the country for 2027. In the association’s view, next year’s contracts could just as well be signed in December, since the infrastructure and staff needed for collection are held by the service providers, not by MOHU.

Note: these are the assessments and assumptions of an interest group. MOHU has not yet responded publicly to the specific objections; it has only rejected “unfounded information” in the general statement quoted above.

Fee disputes are nothing new

Tensions between MOHU and local service providers have surfaced publicly several times over the past two years:

• Early 2025: according to press reports, MOHU sought to cut local companies’ fees by 10–20 percent nationwide; in Nagykanizsa, MOHU planned to replace the local provider, but the dispute ended with an agreement in early January and the former local company stayed on.
• June 2026: waste collection faltered in Szentendre (in Hungarian), and the mayor turned to the chairman of MOL.
• July 2026: waste pre-treatment was suspended in Marcali (in Hungarian) amid a conflict between MOHU and the local public service provider.
• August 2026: garbage could have piled up for weeks in Szolnok because of a MOHU decision; László Gajdos intervened personally.

Transparency on both sides

MOHU’s demand that disputed claims be supported by facts is a professionally legitimate expectation. At the same time, the service providers’ objections can be verified: the balance of rights and obligations in the contract, for example, can be documented. The same standard applies to MOHU. The company says it has already reached agreement with “a significant share” of local companies – yet the 2027 draft contracts are still under review, so there are most likely no signed contracts yet. In this situation, “agreement” presumably means agreement in principle, advanced negotiations or letters of intent.

The two processes are also intertwined. If, instead of final contracts, letters of intent are signed en masse before the government decides, they could become an argument in the renegotiation between the state and MOHU – even though their legal weight and content are not the same as a signed contract’s.

The background: how we got here

• 2022: MOL won the waste management concession (in Hungarian), and from 1 July 2023 the new system was launched nationwide (in Hungarian) under MOHU, for 35 years.
• June 2026: the government requested a detailed report on the concession’s operation (in Hungarian), with a 1 September deadline.
• 1 July 2026: a fee was introduced for household construction debris (in Hungarian) at waste yards, which later led to the Hadházy–MOHU dispute.
• 23 August 2026: László Gajdos announced that serious negotiations with MOHU would begin and that the government would be a tough negotiating partner.
• 3 September 2026: Prime Minister Péter Magyar said that according to the first review MOHU was not, or not adequately, meeting its concession obligations; according to the government, missed EU targets cost the country around HUF 90 billion a year.
• 8 October 2026: twenty-one producer and retail associations called for a review of the entire system in a joint statement, and the minister urged a complete review of waste management at Hungexpo – see our detailed analysis.
• October 2026: MOHU began negotiating its 2027 subcontracting agreements and announced the end of the regional coordinator system in collection and transport.
• 15–16 October 2026: on Thursday evening’s M1 Híradó the minister confirmed that the first phase is complete and that renegotiation will start within weeks; the next day MOHU promised cooperation and publicly criticised an industry organisation.

What could be on the table in the concession contract renegotiation?

The review is led by State Secretary Zsuzsanna Kertész-Káldosi. Details are not yet public, but based on statements so far and industry proposals, the talks are likely to revolve around the following issues:

• Performance targets and sanctions: the minister has now said that cutting landfill and increasing recycling are a cornerstone of the agreement. The question is whether more concrete, annually measurable commitments and consequences will be attached.
• EPR fees and cross-subsidisation: producer associations want transparent costs separated by material stream and fees tied to real costs.
• Household fees: because fees have been frozen at 2012 levels and 3,000–3,200 different municipal tariffs exist across the country, household waste services are persistently loss-making.
• The subcontracting model: the end of the regional coordinator system and the move to direct contracts are the immediate background to the current dispute.
• Data and transparency: official national waste data are currently available only up to 2024, which makes assessing performance difficult.
• EU aspects: the European Commission has launched infringement proceedings over the tender’s conditions and the 35-year term.

An important distinction: renegotiation is not the same as terminating the concession. The minister has previously said that the contract is strict but not set in stone – if it does not serve the country, it must be reviewed. In a September reply to anti-corruption campaigner Ákos Hadházy, he also stressed that the outcome of the review must be determined on professional and legal grounds, not decided in advance.

Recycling instead of landfilling: what does it mean in practice?

The minister’s message is clear, but delivering it is a matter of engineering and investment. The amount of waste landfilled cannot be reduced by decree or communication alone – it requires treatment capacity.

Under the EU waste hierarchy, prevention and reuse come first, followed by recycling, then other recovery (such as energy recovery), and only as a last resort landfill. Two consequences follow that are often conflated:

• The 2035 target of 65 percent recycling can only be reached through more effective separate collection, modern sorting plants and, above all, separate collection and treatment of biowaste (composting, biogas). Energy recovery does not count towards it.
• The landfill cap of no more than 10 percent, on the other hand, can hardly be met without pre-treatment of residual mixed waste and stable, predictable use of the refuse-derived fuel (RDF) produced from it.

In other words, the principle of “not building landfills” works only if treatment and recovery capacity is built or upgraded alongside it, and if landfilling does not remain the cheapest option. A good example of how a well-designed system can deliver quick results is the mandatory deposit return scheme, which the minister himself cited as a positive example. In packaging waste overall, however, Hungary remains among the EU’s laggards (in Hungarian).

What does this mean for residents, municipalities and service providers?

Residents: nothing changes for now. According to MOHU, collection schedules are unchanged, and fee payment and separate collection continue as usual. If you experience disruption, it is worth notifying both your municipality and MOHU’s customer service.

Municipalities: it is worth checking now how far negotiations on the 2027 contract between MOHU and the company serving your settlement have progressed. This summer’s cases – Szentendre, Marcali, Szolnok – showed how quickly local conflicts reach residents. For municipally owned service providers, some provisions of the draft contract may require owner approval, so local councils should also expect to deal with the issue.

Public service providers and subcontractors: two processes are running in parallel – the 2027 contracts with MOHU, and the renegotiation between the state and MOHU. The outcome of the latter may affect the framework of the contracts now under negotiation, so uncertainty will persist in the coming months.

What to watch in the coming weeks

• Will letters of intent appear, and how many service providers will sign them?
• When will renegotiation formally start, and will the findings of the first review phase be made public?
• When will the review of the draft contracts close, when can actual contracts be signed, and what happens where no agreement is reached by year-end?
• Will the industry organisation criticised by MOHU respond, and if so, with what facts?
• Will producer and service-provider associations be given a role in the renegotiation, as they requested on 8 October?
• Will EPR fees and household fees change from 2027?

The shared goal: uninterrupted service from 1 January

However sharp the tone may be right now, the end goal can only be one thing: that waste collection continues without problems from 1 January 2027. The best tool for this is negotiation – the current consultation process offers exactly the opportunity for MOHU and the service providers to resolve the disputed points on a professional basis, listening to each other’s arguments. In this sense, the current disagreements need not be an obstacle, but rather a starting point for a more balanced agreement that both sides can stand behind.

The relationship between the two processes is another reason for this. Whatever the outcome of the concession contract renegotiation – whether amendment or even termination – none of it can happen overnight. If the contract were terminated, the parties would have to settle accounts with each other, resolve asset and contractual issues, and build the legal, organisational and financial framework of a new system. That would take months, so whatever happens on the other track, no substantive change can take effect by 1 January 2027. January service must therefore be secured within the current framework in any case – which is exactly why a shared goal is needed here.

What matters most is that the contractual disputes do not reach residents. The best outcome is that nobody notices anything in early January: bins are emptied as usual, and separate collection and waste yards work just as before. Every party has an interest in this – MOHU, local public service providers, their municipal owners and the government alike.

Ultimately, the parties share a common goal: modern, European-standard waste management in Hungary that returns more waste to the circular economy and sends less to landfill. If the negotiations of the coming weeks move the system in that direction, everyone wins – above all residents and the environment.

dontwasteit.hu will continue to follow developments.

FAQ: concession contract renegotiation

When could the concession contract renegotiation begin?

Within weeks, according to Minister László Gajdos. On M1 Híradó he said the first phase of the MOHU review has been completed, so renegotiation of the 35-year waste management concession can begin. No exact date has been given. In August the talks were only described as starting soon; the government has now indicated a more concrete, short timeframe.

What did the first phase of the MOHU review find?

On 3 September the government announced that, according to the first review, MOHU is not, or not adequately, meeting the obligations and targets set out in its concession contract. The government estimates that missed EU targets cost the country around HUF 90 billion a year. The detailed findings have not yet been made public.

Which industry organisation is MOHU in dispute with?

MOHU did not name the organisation; it only said that an industry organisation is spreading unfounded information about the agreements with local service providers. According to information obtained by dontwasteit.hu, the dispute has arisen between MOHU and one of the associations representing local public service providers, over the draft subcontracting agreements for 2027.

Is anything changing in household waste collection right now?

No. According to MOHU, household service is continuous and uninterrupted, collection schedules are unchanged, and fee payment and separate collection continue as usual. If disruption does occur somewhere, it is worth notifying both the municipality and MOHU’s customer service, so that local problems can be addressed more quickly.

Why does 1 January 2027 matter for local service providers?

MOHU has publicly stated that the regional coordinator system will end in waste collection and transport, and that from 2027 it will contract directly with the companies that physically provide the service. Local public service companies must therefore sign new agreements with new fees and conditions by year-end. Where that fails, January service could become uncertain.

Why does the minister stress recycling over landfilling?

Because too much waste is landfilled in Hungary: 53 percent of municipal waste in 2024. The EU target for 2035 is 65 percent recycling and no more than 10 percent landfill. László Gajdos therefore says the goal is to recycle waste rather than build landfills, and that this will be a cornerstone of the renegotiated agreement.

🔗 Official sources and references: 👉

• MOHU’s official Facebook post, 16 October 2026 (in Hungarian)
• M1 Híradó – László Gajdos’s statement on the MOHU review, 15 October 2026 (in Hungarian)
• MOHU hits back: accuses an industry organisation of unfounded claims – Magyar Nemzet, 16 October 2026 (in Hungarian)
• MOHU’s losses in the second year of its 35-year concession… – Világgazdaság, June 2026 (in Hungarian)
• László Gajdos: it is not only about the review – Világgazdaság, October 2026 (in Hungarian)
• The waste concession is a burden for everyone… – hvg.hu, 3 September 2026 (in Hungarian)
• László Gajdos corrected Ákos Hadházy, then invited him – Index, 4 September 2026 (in Hungarian)
• MOHU saves on waste collectors… – Népszava, January 2025 (in Hungarian)
• Nagykanizsa won the waste war, MOHU had to give in – Népszava, January 2025 (in Hungarian)

Consistent structure, quick answers: every article is built so that both readers and AI search tools can find the key points easily. Our content is produced with the help of AI tools and reviewed by our editor.