Budapest’s street lighting in danger due to the high energy prices?

Gergely Karácsony, the opposition mayor of the Hungarian capital, talked about the future of Budapest’s street lighting in ATV’s Egyenes Beszéd. He also proposed organizing a national energy summit and an energy price cap during the heating season in Hungary.

This is the end of Budapest’s street lighting?

As co-chair of the Hungarian Association of Local Governments (Magyar Önkormányzatok Szövetsége, MÖSZ), Karácsony said they would like to call together an energy summit to harmonise efforts. He added there was no discussion about solving the energy crisis even though the country needs that the most now. He cleared that practices local governments endured until now would not work in the future.

He said local governments could not plan because prices change every day. Therefore, he would like the government, the energy sector and private companies to be represented at the suggested energy summit, atv.hu reported. “An avalanche is coming and we just stand and stare”, he noted. Karácsony stressed that they would not switch off the street lighting in Budapest.

Read also: Hungarian local governments call for holding national energy summit

They will write a letter to PM Orbán

Before, the leadership of the capital decided to shorten the use of decoration lights by two hours. We reported on further proposals to cut back energy consumption in Budapest in THIS article. In Baranya county, some villages already switch off street lighting between 10 PM and 6 AM to lower their consumption.

Furthermore, they would like the administration to introduce a price cap on the energy purchases of the local governments until April 2023, the end of the heating season.

Before the general elections, the government introduced price caps on petrol and some food types, which they have not abolished yet. For example, the fuel price cap lasts until 1 October. It is one of the biggest questions right now, whether the government will prolong it again or not.