Is Budapest’s 2025 budget unlawful?

The government office of Budapest has no other option but turn to the supreme court, the Kúria, over the matter of the capital city’s “unlawful” non-payment of the solidarity tax, the city’s government commissioner said on Friday.

In a video posted on Facebook, Botond Sára said that “the Municipality of Budapest, led by Gergely Karácsony and backed by the left, “is unwilling to pay from the city’s budget the solidarity contribution, an obligation that the other, more than 800 local governments have fulfilled”. Calling the non-payment “unlawful”, Sára said the municipality had no reason to refuse paying the solidarity tax. “The city’s business tax revenues keep growing which serve as the base of the solidarity contribution.”

“It is not the localities to blame for the near-bankruptcy situation Gergely Karácsony is talking about,” said Sára, noting that “Budapest is one and a half times more developed than the EU average, and even three times more developed than some counties [in Hungary]”.

“This is why the central budget law establishes that poorer localities must be supported and the solidarity contribution must be paid,” he said. “The general assembly [of Budapest] is unwilling to do that, so we have no other option but submit a motion to the Kuria,” Sára said, noting that the document he signed would be put in the mail later in the day.

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