Parties submit amendments to budget bill

Budapest (MTI) – More than 500 amendment proposals were filed to the 2016 budget by Friday’s deadline, most of them by opposition parties.

Lajos Kosa (Fidesz) proposed to add 1.5 billion forints (EUR 4.85m) to funding for national sports centres in connection with the World Aquatic Championships Budapest is hosting in 2017.

Cabinet chief Janos Lazar proposed to spend 300 million forints more on the Hungarian National Gallery and 1 billion forints more on the Budapest Operetta and Musical Theatre. He also suggested to regroup funding to benefit the Liget Budapest project, especially the Fine Arts Museum, Ethnology Museum and the Technical and Transport Museum.

Peter Harrach (KDNP) would spend 300 million forints more on church-run health care institutions and 80 million forints on the programmes of the Aron Marton Memorial Year.

Fidesz lawmakers Robert Balazs Simon and Akos Kara proposed a 4.9 billion forint budget for sports facilities in Gyor, northwest Hungary, in connection with the 2017 European Youth Olympics Festival to be organised in the city.

The entire Socialist parliamentary group was behind a proposal to allocate 285 billion forints for wage rises for social-service workers including teachers and health-care workers.

Another Socialist-sponsored bill would regroup 64 billion forints for wage hikes in higher education and funding for the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Under this bill, another 250 billion forints would go towards welfare-related spending, including family allowances and disability and rehabilitation benefits.