Policy Proposal and Documentary on urban greening through Communal Urban Gardens
The detailed policy proposal aims to develop better policy support for communal urban gardens both at municipal and EU-level. By communal urban gardens they mean everything that is taking degraded, abandoned or otherwise unused land within cities and transforms it into green spaces that focus on community building, climate mitigation, urban regeneration, and possibly food production/food education. So not only the classic allotment style gardens, but also things like climate gardens (i.e. Aurora in Budapest). They purposefully excluded high-tech urban farming projects, such as vertical farming, aquaponics, and so on, as they (and the literature) deemed them primarily producing high-cost, resource-intensive produce that at best targets a high-end market, and at worst contributes to growing gentrification and socio-economic inequality.
They interviewed practitioners in different gardens, policy experts, EU officials and so on, and based on their findings they produced four outputs: a policy brief, a policy report, a cost-benefit calculation tool (allowing municipalities, land owners, project initiators to quantify the actual financial benefits that come with converting these spaces into green areas), and a 17-minute documentary showcasing the importance of communal urban gardens.
They propose the expansion and support of Communal Urban Gardens (CUGs) as a low-cost, adaptable, flexible, and inclusive solution aligned with broader EU policy goals. Their three-pronged approach includes connecting CUGs across Europe; a cost-benefit calculation tool; and simplifying funding channels across the EU Cohesion Policy. You can read their short policy brief and the detailed policy proposal.
Most excitingly, with filmmakers Alejandro Ruiz Padín and Mark Yfantidis, they've also created a short documentary that showcases the benefits of CUGs - and the people working to make our cities greener.
The final meeting of the 2024-25 Europaeum cohort was two weeks ago in Brussels, and they presented the Policy Proposal and the documentary at the "European Futures: The Europaeum Policy Conference" last week and discussed its potential on a panel, joined by Heather Brooks from Eurocities. As Peter wrote:
"The panels, keynote speeches and debates at the conference unequivocally agreed that the EU is facing unprecedented challenges. Yet, bringing creativity, new ways of thinking and empathy back into policymaking - the way my fellow scholars have - makes me feel hopeful about what's ahead. The last two years at Europeaum I spent in the company of some of the most talented, kind and inspiring researchers I've ever met. The culmination of this is four forward-looking, holistic and crucial policy proposals developed by the Scholars: on tackling disinformation, rehumanising the monitoring of accommodation centres for asylum-seekers, decriminalising sex work, and - closest to my heart - urban greening and regeneration."
Other new publications by Peter Bori:
'Energy justice without democracy? Energy transitions in the era of right-wing authoritarianism in Hungary'
Elsevier, Energy Research and Social Science, November 2025 (open access).
The article revisits the energy justice debate as a broader question of democracy, engaging purposefully with the democratic deficits in energy transition politics engendered by far-right authoritarian rule in Hungary. Co-authored with Noémi Gonda, alumna PhD student of the department. Drawing on Hungary as a case study, they show that while policies and projects are framed around energy justice, they often serve to consolidate political power and deepen social exclusion—particularly for already marginalised groups like Roma communities. Instead of fostering participation, pluralism, and fairness, energy transition policies under Viktor Orbán’s government have been shaped by centralisation, elite capture, and opaque decision-making. The study argues that energy justice cannot be separated from democracy: without democratic institutions and accountability, the promise of “just” transitions risks being co-opted into tools of authoritarian state-building.
Noemi Gonda recalls: "Doing field research in Tiszabő, Hungary, felt surreal. Peter Bori and I were told by a farmer that he had recently sold a hectare of land for 1 million forints (2500 Euros) so investors- most probably linked to pro-regime oligarchs- could build a solar farm. In the village, cameras were everywhere. A pro-regime NGO ran the school, public washing facilities, and even oversaw a solar project. The village is home to a majority of poor Roma population, and pre-paid electricity meters on their homes further stigmatise these residents who are actively being marginalised by the Hungarian society. Beyond the field visits, we reviewed policy documents and conducted interviews with different types of interlocutors- everyone except government officials: because they did not want to talk to us.
This scene revealed something urgent: that two forces are colliding. Climate change, already causing ecological devastation and displacement. And the rise of the far-right, reshaping governance globally. For us, these developments are not parallel but intertwined: far-right actors are actively recasting the terms of climate action including that of the energy transition using energy infrastructures as tools of state legitimacy and as instruments of exclusion. Importantly, our research underscores how the future of democracy is bound up with the politics of energy transitions."
'Orbán courts Putin while clashing with the EU — and the Hungarian economy bears the costs'
Demokratický střed
How does the war in Ukraine affect Hungary's economy? How does energy, a geopolitical gamble on Russian gas, farmers protests and sky-high inflation link to the war? And how does all this affect Hungary's already strained relationship with Brussels?
This co-authored article with Julia Lilian Szabo is looking at the impacts of the war in Ukraine on Hungary's economy: Peter's section (amongst others) delves deeper into the effects the war had on the agricultural sector and farmer's protests.
Written as part of the framework of the project 'Reflections of the War in Ukraine in Visegrad Countries'. The project is co-financed by the governments of Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants from the International Visegrad Fund. The mission of the fund is to advance ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe.