The Ceremonial Founding Session of the Budapest Assembly
Budapest, November 7 (MTI) – The government and municipality of Budapest will work together in the forthcoming local governing cycle, the capital’s mayor said today.
Speaking at a ceremonial founding session of the Budapest Assembly, Istvan Tarlos said the ruling party’s representatives had never before been in agreement to such a degree as they are now, and all of them want to work independently of their party allegiance, emotions or affiliations. Rather, they want to work for the good of the city itself, he said.
He said there had been numerous achievements thanks to cooperation between the government and the municipality, and he added that he continued to count on the central government as well as the local one. The signals of this will be able to be felt over the next five years, he added.
Budapest is a sovereign and free city, Tarlos said.
“We’ve already had our big communist friend and now we have our democratic friend,” he said, adding that still they wanted to say “what we should do and how we should do it.”
“We can decide of our own accord what kind of democracy we’d like…” he added.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban, addressing the founding session, said the following period would be one of Hungarian dynamism, and this in itself would lift the capital with its upswing. The success of Budapest is in the national interest, he added.
On every issue, decision makers must stand by the people and plans must be realised together with the people, he said, adding that national consultation served this aim. Nothing would be achieved by giving lectures, Orban said.
The prime minister said there was no reason to be afraid of conflict; the country has achieved a lot more over the past four years by undertaking difficult struggles.
He said Budapest for the twenty years up to 2010 had been weakened “in the dispute it had with the rest of the country”. But Hungary and Budapest can only be strong if they join forces in an alliance, he said.
“We concluded that alliance four years ago in the strong conviction that Hungary cannot be a free, self-sufficient and successful country without a successful national capital,” Orban said.
Listing investment projects that had been carried out in Budapest over the past four years, Orban mentioned the fourth metro line. Further, he said that since “the word ruin looks good only next to the word pub” the refurbishment of the Ludovica Academy, the Varkert Bazar, the Music Academy and the Erkel Theatre had to be noted. He also mentioned the Budapest Music Centre and the Groupama Sports Arena.
He said politics on its own would be unable to revive Budapest. Business, community or neighbourhood entreprises that have been contributing, and he listed the Sziget Festival, ruin pubs, start-ups, city walks and the spray-paint art as enhancements to the city’s life.
The duty of politics is to give way to the creativity to Hungarians living in Budapest to allow them to feel the city is their home, he said.
Photo: MTI – Szilard Koszticsak
Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters
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