Mayor: the government took too much money from Budapest

The central government has stripped the Budapest municipality of funds amounting to 227 billion forints (EUR 601m) in the past three years, Mayor Gergely Karácsony said on Facebook on Friday.

According to Karácsony’s calculations, the city had been made to pay a new solidarity tax introduced in 2019, which amounted to 136 billion forints, while it collected 81 billion forints less in the local business tax, as a result of government-initiated changes to the system.

Karácsony spoke in reaction to recent remarks made by Gergely Gulyás, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office, who had said that the city had “inherited over 214 billion forints from former Mayor István Tarlós”. He insisted that the extra burdens the government had levied on the city “far exceed the amount the government is harping on”.

Socialists to turn to top court over dismissal of teachers

The opposition Socialist Party is turning to the Constitutional Court over the dismissal of teachers who took part in civil disobedience, the party’s co-leader said on Friday. Because a constitutional review requires supporting signatures from 50 lawmakers, the Socialist Party’s parliamentary group leader will on Friday send a letter to the other opposition groups, requesting their support, Agnes Kunhalmi told an online press conference. The Socialists side with teachers and with those “whose rights are infringed by the government”, Kunhalmi said, calling on the government to withdraw a draft legislation that would change the status of teachers.

She argued that the model contained in the proposal was “anti-teacher, anti-student and anti-education”. This draft legislation would “definitively dismantle Hungarian schools”, she said, arguing that it went against every aspect of Hungary’s agreement with the European Union. She said the agreement stipulated that the government and parliament cannot unilaterally introduce measures that increase teachers’ workload, restrict existing professional competencies or make the teaching profession less attractive.