President Áder vetoes law on Erzsébet Square transfer from Budapest to state

Budapest, December 2 (MTI) – President János Áder on Friday returned a law to parliament under which the ownership of central Budapest’s Erzsébet Square should have been transferred from the city to the Hungarian state.

In his justification, the president said that a property transfer cannot be completed without consent from the municipality, adding that neither the city council nor the mayor of Budapest had been consulted before the bill was tabled. Ader requested the parliament to repeat the procedure.

The Budapest council on Thursday expressed its “surprise” that ownership of the square, a central spot in the Inner City, should be transferred to the state, and insisted that the body had not been consulted prior to the change.

Under the law, the 2.6 hectare square itself and three adjacent properties would have been transferred to the state on December 15, free of charge. The justification of the law says the square as a public park would thus be handled and operated “in a unified way”.

Photo: VinceB – Wikimedia commons

Source: MTI