Budapest mayor Karácsony slams 2025 budget as ‘anti-Budapest,’ calls for united municipal action

Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony said the government’s 2025 budget was “not only anti-Budapest but also against all municipalities” and called on mayors nationwide “to find remedy for the damage”.

Speaking at a year-closing press briefing of the National Federation of Municipalities (MÖSZ) on Wednesday, Karácsony said mayors should find leverage for the measures the government “is seeking to impose on its own municipalities as punishment”.

The government “is trying to give the false impression (…) that the solidarity contribution paid by the capital and other municipalities will help smaller, poorer municipalities,” the mayor said. Citing a Constitutional Court ruling, he added that “the solidarity contribution has no direct impact on the financing of poor localities”.

“The money they collect from us will never be received” in poorer towns, he added.

He noted that under the 2025 budget municipalities would be required to pay a combined 360 billion forints (EUR 876.2m) in solidarity contributions to the central budget, a sum 13 times higher than in 2017, when the tax was first imposed. Meanwhile, municipalities would benefit from a less than 0.5 percent increase in state financing, Karácsony said, adding that “taking inflation into consideration, municipalities will actually receive less money” than last year.

According to the mayor, Budapest will turn to “remaining instruments of the rule of law”.

“We can’t and won’t pay this toll, which will not end up with small municipalities but is meant to patch up the holes in the budget brought about by the government’s bad financial management.”

Read also:

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