ABSTRACT
The Gabcikovo-Nagymaros dam issue is a complex question involving much more than a massive hydro-electric dam project. It is intimately linked with the River Danube, on which it is located, and with the history and mutual relations of the various peoples in its immediate vicinity. The Danube flows 2,888 km from its source at Donaueschingen in the German Black Forest to its delta in the Ukranian Black Sea. It is Europe's next largest river, second only to the Volga. As it leaves Austria at Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, the Danube soon becomes part of a complex river system. A hotly debated issue in relation to the dam project has been the amount of permissible human intervention on the river. The Danube is an internationalised river and has been so since the first Danube Convention in 1856, adopted following the defeat of Russia in the Crimean War. The Dunakiliti weir and the Nagymaros works have been discontinued.
