Local governments in Hungary

LMP accuses government of abusing special powers

Daily News Hungary

Opposition LMP on Monday accused the government of abusing its special powers to fight the coronavirus pandemic, saying it had taken away a significant amount of funding from local councils and had “launched a final attack on universities”.

The government’s “insufficient management of the crisis” has “pushed the country into a deep social and economic crisis”, LMP group leader László Lóránt Keresztes told an online press conference ahead of the first meeting of parliament’s spring session. “Meanwhile, the cabinet is engaging in a deceptive and baseless communication campaign,” he insisted.

“While they say that small and medium-sized companies are getting more support than ever before, they’re not helping the families who are struggling the most,” Keresztes said.

He accused the cabinet of using taxpayer money to prop up companies with ties to the government.

Keresztes also criticised the government for carrying on with “its needlessly expensive investments that will never be profitable”.

He said it was “not enough to fight these policies in parliament”.

The cuts to local council budgets can only be fought in cooperation with localities and the autonomy of universities can only be preserved with the support of their host cities and regions, Keresztes said.

As we wrote before, Gergely Karácsony, the mayor of Budapest, and István Újhelyi, an opposition Socialist MEP have turned to Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission’s president, over 5,472 billion euros of European Union recovery funds that Hungary is slated to receive, details HERE.

Daily News Hungary
Read alsoLMP accuses government of abusing special powers

Orbán cabinet making it difficult for local councils to function, says leftist opposition

Daily News Hungary economy

The government’s cuts to funding for local councils is making it difficult for them to function, the opposition Democratic Coalition’s László Varju, the head of parliament’s budget committee, said on Monday.

At an online press conference following a committee meeting that lacked quorum due to a no-show by ruling party representatives, Varju said that the government’s remarks about the activities of local councils “is often totally divorced from reality”.

Lawmakers present at the meeting had been unable to discuss a bill on support for the additional responsibilities local councils have had to take on during the coronavirus epidemic, Varju said.

The government, he said, had promised to compensate localities for their reduced funding, “yet nothing’s being done, even though the deadline for submitting the draft budget expires on February 15”, he said.

“The cabinet has made life very difficult for local council leaders who want to observe the laws but receive no help from the government,” Varju said.

DK lawmaker Anett Bősz that elsewhere in Europe, the management of the coronavirus crisis had been most effective when the central government listened to local leaders.

Monday’s committee meeting was also attended by György Gémesi, head of the alliance of local governments MOSZ.

Ruling Fidesz said in reaction that

the leftist parties were “hypocritical”, insisting that Socialist-liberal governments had “forced local governments to take out forex loans, with municipalities going bankrupt or nearing bankruptcy”.

The party said in a statement that governments before 2010 had withheld some 800 billion forints (EUR 2.2bn) from municipalities, which they should have spent on mandatory services.

Fidesz also noted that its government paid off the debts of municipalities between 2011-2014, spending a total 1,400 billion forints on the consolidation scheme. “We don’t want any of the Left’s crisis management advice,” the statement said.

Read alsoHungarian tourism agency: EU and opposition local governments had neglected to help out the sector – UPDATE

Hungarian tourism agency: EU and opposition local governments had neglected to help out the sector – UPDATE

Hungary’s tourism sector needs a new strategy after a “tragic” year in which aid from the Hungarian government was the only lifeline it could count on, the head of the Hungarian Tourism Agency said in an interview.

Zoltán Guller told Tuesday’s Magyar Nemzet that the plunge came after the sector’s largest ever growth in 2019.

“The government stood by the tourism industry from the very beginning”, Guller said. Besides tax cuts and support for all players of the sector, Guller said the government had ramped up developments.

“In a few years, rural Hungary will be nothing like what we see now,” he said.

The government is supporting the construction of 35 new hotels and the refurbishment of 14,000 private accommodations, 700 bed and breakfasts and 114 open-air swimming pools and beaches, he said. The largest spa reconstruction programme of “all time” will also be launched soon, Guller added.

Until the sector can restart, the government is paying two-thirds of labour costs, he added.

Meanwhile, he said

the European Union and “opposition local governments” had neglected to help out the industry.

“All they do in Brussels is talk, but not a single step has been taken to support entrepreneurs,” he said.

He also called on “opposition municipalities” to fight to keep companies afloat.

“Budapest should learn from Vienna, Prague, Berlin or Rome” when it comes to aiding the tourist sector, he said.

He called on the sector to “hang in there for a few more weeks” and to adhere to regulations. “There’s no point in risking a coronavirus infection or longer lockdowns just before reopening,” he said.

UPDATE

Magyar Nemzet on Tuesday afternoon said in its online edition that

the government has decided to disburse central wage subsidies to applicants in the catering and tourism industries in a simplified procedure at the beginning of the month.

The measure is aimed at saving jobs at businesses hit by pandemic related-restrictions which have until February 8 to submit their applications, the paper said.

In addition, the rules of accounting will change to the effect that the payment of the subsidised monthly wage to an employee and the actual fact of keeping them on the payroll will be inspected following the month for which the subsidy is disbursed, it said.

Márga Restaurant
Read alsoRebellion? Hungarian caterers to reopen even though lockdown is in effect

Hungarian opposition accuses govt of waging political campaign to ‘punish’ local councils

Daily News Hungary economy

Six opposition parties published a joint statement on Tuesday accusing the government of pursuing a political campaign aimed at “punishing local councils” run by the opposition, especially the administration of Budapest.

DK, Jobbik, LMP, Momentum, the Socialists and Párbeszéd accused the Orban government of curbing the powers of local governments in an “unprincipled and senseless” way, thereby hurting several million Hungarians.

The statement said it was the “duty” of local governments to inform citizens that at least 100 billion forints (EUR 280m) was being taken away from them in an “arbitrary and politically motivated” way.

It added that the Orbán government was the only central administration in Europe that was “robbing local councils of their last remaining income” instead of supporting them at the time of the coronavirus epidemic and the current crisis.

The opposition parties insisted that the government was ploughing hundreds of billions of forints of public money into private foundations and “funding their own power and economic interests”.

The parties said “after a change of government in 2022, the democratic opposition alliance will restore local government, the autonomy of towns and villages, and will ensure financing goes to local governments free of political considerations”.

As we wrote yesterday, the municipal government of Budapest is launching an information campaign with a view to providing a picture of the situation in the capital, details HERE.

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Read alsoOfficial: Tax cuts to continue in 2021

Budapest municipality to launch information campaign against Orbán cabinet measures

budapest_opposition mayors

The municipal government of Budapest is launching an information campaign with a view to providing a picture of the situation in the capital, Gergely Karácsony, the city’s mayor, told an online press conference on Monday.

Karácsony said the idea was to strengthen Budapest’s community and persuade the central government to scrap its curbs on the local administration.

Information will be made available concerning the operation of public services and the city’s finances, as well as its public services.

The campaign is also geared towards making the public aware of Budapest’s strength in fighting “government measures”.

“We can join forces to make the government lift the austerity measures” imposed on localities, he added.

The mayor said the city’s community would be “greatly needed in the following period”.

Karácsony noted the coronavirus epidemic and associated economic crisis, as well as “government austerity measures affecting local governments”, as factors to contend with.

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Read alsoThe final blow? Mayors call on Orbán to withdraw decision halving local business tax ?

Mayor calls on government to compensate local councils for losses in business tax revenue

Budapest

The government should pay full compensation to local councils for their losses in local business tax revenue, Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony said after talks between government representatives and local government alliances on Thursday.

As part of its coronavirus crisis relief, the central government has halved the local business tax this year for companies with annual turnover of under 4 billion forints (EUR 11.1m) and fewer than 250 people on payroll.

Karácsony, who is a co-leader of the alliance of local governments MOSZ and head of the alliance of Budapest local councils BOSZ, told an online press conference that at the meeting both alliances had represented the position that local governments should be compensated.

The technical details of this are close to being finalised in the cases of municipalities with fewer than 25,000 residents, the mayor said, adding that there was “no reason” why larger municipalities could not also receive compensation.

He noted, however, that the government had yet to respond to the proposal.

Budapest is asking for compensation because it does not want to risk a drop in the quality of the public services it oversees, Karácsony said. Therefore, Budapest is asking companies that can afford it to pay the full business tax, he added.

Budapest
Read alsoBudapest mayor: New Year ‘a chance to start over’

Black Lives Matter artwork in Budapest causes rage among rightist politicians – The Guardian

BLM hungary

A Black Lives Matter artwork planned to be installed for two weeks in the ninth district caused quite the outrage among rightwing politicians so much that the sculptor itself is afraid that his work will be destroyed.

The installation that recently won a tender for public art will be one of seven pieces chosen to be on display next spring in the capital, but only this particular one hit the headlines. It will be a one-metre tall sculpture in the colours of the rainbow promoting the BLM movement. It was created by Péter Szalay, who fears it will be destroyed once it is erected, since

rightist parties are already attacking the installation, and it has received threats of demolition.

Commentators on the actual pro-government television threatened to pull it down if it gets installed, while others laughed saying it was an absurdity, wanting to put it out, considering the low number of black people living in Budapest – writes the Guardian.com. Péter Szalay says that “pulling down statues as part of the BLM movement is actually going on in the United States, while here in Hungary the issue inspires the installation of one. It is important to note that the work contains both narratives, making it not directly a BLM propaganda statue. We have to understand it as something that represents all actions that have caused turbulences in the United States.”


The tender was organised by the deputy of the district’s mayor, Dada Suzi, from the Two-Tailed Dog Party. She said she wanted to recreate the traditions of public street arts, for which she thinks the government has little time.

“For Fidesz culture politics is all about historical memories and memorials, it relativises Hungary’s role in the Second World War and paints a picture of us as victims.”- she said.

Gergely Gulyás, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff said back in December that the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States is a racist movement that does not recognise white and black people as equals, which goes against all human rights thinking of the 20th century. Based on this, not those against the sculpture are racist but those who make it happen.

Probably none of these people or politicians considered the fact that the statue is planned to be showcased for only two weeks, not as a permanent part of the district’s decoration.

black lives matter demonstration
Read alsoOver 1,000 people join “Black Lives Matter” protest in Hungarian capital

Government working to keep local councils functioning, says official

budapest

Helping Hungary’s local councils stay operational is in everyone’s interest, Balazs Orbán, a state secretary of the Hungarian Prime Minister’s Office, wrote in a letter to György Gémesi, head of the alliance of local governments MOSZ, on Monday.

As we wrote before, Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony and 37 mayors of Budapest districts and cities around Hungary demanded in a joint statement that the government withdraw a decision on halving the local business tax. (Read more: The final blow? Mayors call on Orbán to withdraw decision halving local business tax)

Municipalities with fewer than 25,000 residents will be automatically compensated for lost revenues, Orbán wrote, adding that the government was open to negotiations with larger cities. Also, Hungary’s permanent representative office in Brussels is prepared to help local council leaders whose cities are in need of financial support from the European Union, the state secretary added.

Orbán noted that Gémesi in the past had criticised the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic on multiple occasions, particularly its financing of local councils. The state secretary said the burdens that come with Hungary’s response to the pandemic were being shared fairly by the whole of Hungarian society.

Due to the pandemic and its effects on the economy, Hungary’s GDP is projected to contract by 6.4 percent in 2020 compared with expectations of a 4 percent growth rate at the beginning of last year, Orbán said.

And in a situation like this, he added, “hardly anything can be more important . than protecting jobs”. The key to this is to reduce the burdens on Hungarian small and medium-sized businesses, such as the business tax, he said, arguing that SMEs employed the most people in the country.

Orbán said that “contrary to claims by certain opposition city leaders”, the government was not taking “a single cent” away from local councils by halving the local business tax payable by SMEs.

Instead, the businesses will be keeping that money and the measure is actually an expenditure for the government, he added.

“The government believes that instead of raising taxes in a time of crisis, the burdens on people and business should be reduced,” Orbán wrote.

The government spent more than 1,000 billion forints (EUR 2.75bn) on health-care measures in response to the pandemic in 2020, 3,700 billion on rebooting the economy and close to 3,000 forints on supporting workers and businesses, the state secretary wrote.

The moratorium on loan repayments has saved families and businesses 2,000 billion forints, he said, noting that the government has also begun reintroducing the 13th month pension. Also, this year alone, it will spend over 197 billion forints on wage hikes for health-care workers, Orbán added.

He also noted that

the 2021 budget allocates 865 billion forints in state support to local councils, 17 percent more than last year’s budget.

The final blow? Mayors call on Orbán to withdraw decision halving local business tax ?

final blow local tax hungary

Budapest Mayor Gergely Karacsony and 37 mayors of Budapest districts and cities around Hungary demanded in a joint statement on Sunday that the government withdraw a decision on halving the local business tax.

PM Orbán said the local business tax would be halved for small- and medium-sized enterprises and sole proprietors from January 1. Details HERE.

The statement issued by an organisation dubbed Alliance of Free Cities said the move would be a “final blow” to local councils.

“It has nothing to do with managing the economic crisis but is about the power politics of Fidesz,” the statement added.

The mayors signing the statement called for joint protests by local councils that want to “protect the public services they offer to citizens and their ability to take action”.

As a sign of protest, the mayors said their cities would turn off their festive holiday lights from 7pm on December 23 in order to call people’s attention to the importance of public services offered by the councils.

The councils use local business tax revenues throughout Hungary to ensure public services, local transport, rubbish collection, road maintenance, public lighting and the care of green areas, they said.

The revenues are also used for paying social support, financing theatres and other cultural and sport activities, they added.

The mayors said they expect that the compensation promised by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to cities with more than 25,000 residents would be distributed arbitrarily, on a political basis.

Joint appeal of mayors, signed

Gergely Karácsony mayor of Budapest
László Botka, mayor of Szeged
András Nemény, mayor of Szombathely
Péter Márki-Zay, mayor of Hódmezővásárhely
László Csőzik, mayor of Érd
Attila Péterffy, mayor of Pécs
Tamás Pintér, mayor of Dunaújváros
Ilona Szűcsné Posztovics, mayor of Tatabánya
Klára Nyirati Klára, mayor of Baja
István Leidinger, mayor of Pomáz
Zsolt Fülöp, mayor of Szentendre
György Gémesi, mayor of Gödöllő
Péter Szitka, mayor of Kazincbarcika
Péter Hegedűs, mayor of Balmazújváros
Tamás Wittinghoff, mayor of Budaörs
József Tóth, mayor of Polgár
Antal Máté, mayor of Nyírbátor
György Fülöp, mayor of Tiszaújváros
Béla Schwartz, mayor of Ajka
Róbert Lengyel, mayor of Siófok
Csaba Balogh, mayor of Göd
Gábor Üveges, mayor of Hernádszentandrás
Miklós Hatvani, mayor of Isaszeg
István Vécsi, mayor of Ricse
Márta V. Naszályi, mayor of I. District of Budapest
Gergely Örsi, mayor of II. District of Budapest
László Kiss, mayor of III. District of Budapest
Tibor Déri, mayor of IV. District of Budapest
Tamás Soproni, mayor of V. District of Budapest
Péter Niedermüller, mayor of VII. District of Budapest
András Pikó, mayor of VIII. District of Budapest
Krisztina Baranyi, mayor of IX. District of Budapest
Imre László, mayor of XI. District of Budapest
József Tóth, mayor of XIII. District of Budapest
Csaba Horváth, mayor of XIV. District of Budapest
Angéla Cserdiné Németh, mayor of XV. District of Budapest
Sándor Szaniszló, mayor of XVIII. District of Budapest
Péter Gajda, mayor of XIX. District of Budapest

Hungarian forint
Read alsoHungarian government: Local councils prohibited from increasing taxes next year

Hungary’s supreme court okays new procedure in Szeviép case

court antifa case

Hungary’s supreme court, the Kúria, on Wednesday upheld a decision by the appeals court of Pécs, which ordered a new procedure in the case of construction company Szeviép, whose leaders have been charged in connection with gross violation of bankruptcy regulations.

Three leaders of the company have been suspected of syphoning some 1.5 billion forints (EUR 4.3) off the company while it was being liquidated, thus preventing payments to Szeviép’s debtors.

A local court in Szeged earlier sentenced the defendants to prison, while the district court acquitted them in a secondary ruling.

The Pécs appeals court ordered a new procedure, saying the district court had passed the secondary decision without a trial.

The Kúria expressed agreement with the appeals court and said that deficiencies in the primary ruling could only be remedied through presenting evidence and hearing further experts.

Szeviép is believed to have received hefty contracts from Szeged’s Socialist leadership, while it failed to pay off its subcontractors.

vattamány
Read alsoPolice investigating sale of 7th district local council-owned homes

Police investigating sale of 7th district local council-owned homes

vattamány

Police have launched an investigation into the sale of properties owned by Budapest’s 7th district local council, the spokesman of the national police force said on Wednesday.

The authorities are working to determine whether there was any criminal activity involved in the sale, Kristóf Gál told a press conference.

The 7th district mayor’s office, under the leadership of opposition DK Mayor Péter Niedermüller, on Tuesday said it had filed a criminal complaint over the sale of houses in downtown Király street on suspicion of misappropriation of public funds.

The mayor’s office last month said it would challenge the contract for the sale of an apartment building in Király street concluded under the previous, Fidesz leadership before court, after the authorities had withdrawn 417 million forints (EUR 1.2m) from the district’s accounts. Under the contract signed under Fidesz’s Mayor Zsolt Vattamány, the district agreed to move out 45 inhabitants of three houses into fully reconstructed homes and sell the buildings within a few weeks’ time, the office had said.

Fidesz lawmaker István Bajkai later said he would file a report to the police against Niedermüller on suspicion of misappropriation of funds.

Bajkai said the 417 million forints had been withdrawn because the council owed the money to a company as penalty for delays in reconstruction works in Kiraly street.

He noted that the contract was concluded in 2003 “in a manner seriously detrimental to the local authority”, and amended under Fidesz leadership in 2019. The development thus could have brought “billions for the authority and improved the district”, he said.

He accused Niedermüller of neglecting to avert the damage and protect the authority’s funds, adding that the mayor had not cancelled the contract either, a step the local authority had the right to do.

As we wrote today, the National Tax and Customs Administration of Hungary (NAV) ordered an investigation against Sándor Kovács, Fidesz member of the Hungarian National Assembly from Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg County, details HERE.

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Read alsoWhat a week! Hungarian Deputy State Secretary arrested on suspicion of corruption

Hungarian government: Local councils prohibited from increasing taxes next year

Hungarian forint

The government has ordered local councils not to increase local and municipal taxes next year. Further, councils must not introduce any new tax or eliminate or reduce existing tax breaks, the finance ministry has said in a statement.

The government’s aim is to make life easier for Hungarian businesses and households struggling to cope during the coronavirus pandemic, the statement released late on Tuesday said.

Párbeszéd: Government stymieing local councils by prohibiting them from increasing taxes

Opposition Párbeszéd on Wednesday accused the government of effectively hobbling the operations of local councils by ordering them not to increase local and municipal taxes next year or introduce any new taxes.

Párbeszéd’s deputy group leader, Bence Tordai, told an online press conference that

the order came from same government which “promotes itself” as being dedicated to tax cuts.

At the same time, “we know that they have carried out the most severe tax increases over the past ten years,” he added, citing the introduction of the flat tax rate which resulted in higher taxes for low earners and the 27 percent VAT.

As we wrote before, the Budapest Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BKIK) was also against a proposal by MKIK’s head to suspend the payment of local business tax (ipa) to municipalities, read more HERE.

new tram line in budapest
Read alsoWhat are the most anticipated developments in Budapest?

What are the most anticipated developments in Budapest?

new tram line in budapest

Development of hospitals, public transport and housing without tax increases or loans, and cooperation between the Hungarian government and the capital; this is what residents of Budapest want.

Portfolio has conducted a public opinion poll with Hungary’s leading market research company NRC. The aim was to find out what residents of Budapest think about past developments as well as the most urgent areas to focus on in the future. NRC asked the opinion of 1000 Budapest residents, aged between 18 and 65. The research took place in November 2020.

The most crucial developments

According to the results, the three most important areas to be developed in the upcoming period are hospitals, public transport, and residential properties (including housing development, and improving conditions). The establishment of green areas, public parks and building of roads and bridges are the fourth and fifth most important areas.

Among the developments that are already under planning within the area of public transport in the upcoming period, the most important is the replacement of HÉV vehicles that are on average already 44 years old. The aim is to get new, air-conditioned vehicles with low floors – and the public procurement just started the other day.

Budapest residents also voted for the tram project towards the South of Buda, and for the building of new housing units.

Public transport

According to the research, residents of Budapest do not support prohibitive and coercive measures to ease traffic, but they do support the development of public transport and alternative traffic solutions. Public transport developments in the capital are backed by 81.3 %, while the suburban tram developments by 75 %. 70 % wants the establishment of P+R parking spaces and the renovation of HÉV lines. 58.1 % voted for the building of bridges across the Danube in suburban areas. On the other hand, residents refuse the new potential taxes that would aim to prevent traffic jams (only 23.8 % would support), and not too many of them support the building of a bicycle lane on the Grand Boulevard, either.

Past developments, such as the renovation of tram-line 1, a new bus, metro, and tram vehicles, the building of metro 4, and renovation of metro 3 are highly supported by the participating residents. The development of Puskás Arena, on the other hand, seems to be the least supported in the last 10 years, as it was only rated as moderately necessary by the majority.

Government vs Budapest

When asked about the cooperation between the Hungarian government and the capital, nearly 100 % of the participants agreed that the mayor of Budapest and the government have to cooperate even in cases of political arguments (95.7 % agreed) and have to maintain an active dialogue with each other even if they are supported by opposing political parties (94.9 %).

On the economic effect of coronavirus

The most important task for both the government and the local municipalities are the protection of jobs – 92.5 % agreed. The government should take over development costs from the municipality of Budapest to help its budget – 82 out of 100 agreed. But only 19 out of 100 agreed that Budapest should take loans due to the economic effects of Covid-19.

metro-3-upgrade budapest
Read alsoM3 upgrade suspended: stations are closed but contractor asks for more money

Read alsoInauguration of Nyugati Railway Station to be postponed

Budapest Mayor Karácsony: Orbán’s ‘war on EU, local govts’ unacceptable

eu flag hungary

Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony on Thursday called it “unacceptable” that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was “waging wars against the European Union and local governments, two indispensable allies in handling the economic crisis.”

In an open letter published on his Facebook page, Karácsony said that rather than multiplying the resources needed to protect lives and livelihoods by strengthening partnerships, “Orbán is about to reject EU support for the Hungarian people”. He also said the prime minister was pushing local authorities to the brink of insolvency by increasing their burdens.

Although the Budapest municipality’s revenues have fallen by over 20 percent due to the coronavirus epidemic, the government has increased its taxes three-and-a-half-fold, and the taxes on its main water supplier four-fold , Karacsony said.

He called on Orbán to accept the partnership of local governments in the interest of handling the crisis effectively.

“Do not fight with Hungarian localities and the EU, which is offering help to the country, but rather make sure that funding reaches those entitled to it, the Hungarian people,”

Karácsony said.

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Read alsoOrbán: Hungary’s EU budget veto in line with treaties

Liget Budapest – City assembly approves amendment to construction rules

budapest assembly

Budapest’s metropolitan assembly on Wednesday approved an amendment to building regulations in connection with the revamp of the capital’s City Park.

The amendment was approved with 18 votes in favour, 10 against and one abstention.

The proposal notes that the amendment nixes construction of the New National Gallery, the Hungarian House of Innovation and the City Park Theatre along with certain catering and commercial establishments with the aim of turning the areas on which they would have been built into green spaces.

It also adds regulations pertaining to the use of renewable energy and amends existing ones with the aim of protecting the park’s plant life.

In a debate before the amendment was passed, Fidesz councillor Zsolt Láng called its approval “unlawful”, arguing that it went against a government decree fixing the project’s building regulations issued on Tuesday which says the capital will not have the authority to amend building rules set out in the decree. Read more HERE: Liget Budapest – Hungarian government decree fixes City Park construction rules

Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony said

the city’s leadership had offered to compromise on the project with the government by allowing completion of construction projects that were already under way in the area.

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Read alsoHouse of Hungarian Music is winner of prestigious Music Cities Awards

Liget Budapest – Hungarian government decree fixes City Park construction rules

Budapest green spaces coronavirus

A new government decree fixes the current building regulations in connection with the revamp of Budapest’s City Park.

According to the decree published on Tuesday evening in the latest issue of Magyar Közlöny, the official state gazette, the capital will not have the authority to amend building rules set out in the decree.

These stipulate, for example, the dimensions of buildings to be built in the park and the amount of green area attached to each site.

László Baán, the ministerial commissioner in charge of the Liget Budapest project, told MTI that the government decree does not entail any changes in terms of how the Liget Project investment proceeds, and maintains the current regulations in all respects.

Budapest’s city administration, he insisted, had been intent on bypassing dialogue with the project’s leaders, but thanks to Tuesday’s decree, opportunities for dialogue remained.

He noted

the Budapest leadership started the ball rolling to change current City Park building regulations six months ago.

Baán insisted the issue of the park’s revamp was a national matter as well as a local one. He accused the city’s leaders of bypassing the Metropolitan Public Development Council and had submitted its planned amendments to the Metropolitan General Assembly directly.

He said the city’s leaders had ignored the views of 2,000 civilian participants, more than 90 percent of whom argued in favour of maintaining the current regulations.

Baán said the project’s leadership was committed to putting the construction of the three new sites that the capital’s leadership objected to on hold until an agreement is reached with it. The sites are the New National Gallery, the Hungarian House of Innovation and the Városliget Theatre.

But, he added, given the “outstanding importance” of the planned developments “that serve the interests of Budapest and the nation”, the sides should work towards the conclusion of an agreement based on professional arguments and facts, he said.

The commissioner said

the metropolitan leadership’s emergency amendment would have nixed construction of the New National Gallery, the Hungarian House of Innovation and the City Park Theatre.

Baán insisted that the proportion of green areas in the City Park would grow from 60 percent to 65 percent under the Liget Project plans, adding that buildings had always been in place at the sites in question, so, he added, the city leadership’s claim that its amendment was about protecting green spaces was spurious.

Baán said the Liget Project’s developments handed over so far had proved popular, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors to the renovated areas of the park, the new playground, the Millennium House, Rose Garden, City Park Sports Centre and fields and the dog park.

He said opinion polls indicated that 70 percent of Budapest’s residents and 80 percent nationally wanted the Liget project to be fully implemented.

Gergely Karácsony, the mayor of Budapest, said in response that

the central government had “re-opened the fight” over the issue of City Park with the decree.

He said that as a mayoral candidate in last autumn’s municipal election, he had vowed to protect the park’s green areas and ban any further construction there.

“The majority of Budapest residents voted for this programme which we will carry out,” Karácsony said on Facebook. The mayor said that “for a short while” Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had appeared to accept the voters’ choice, saying that “what the City Assembly does not want will not happen”.

The decree published on Tuesday night invalidates the prime minister’s promise, Karácsony said, adding that the decree contravened Hungarian law declaring public parks off-limits to construction sites.

He pledged to submit a proposal that corresponded to his original programme “and respects the will of Budapest voters” to the municipal assembly later today.

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Read alsoWOW! Car traffic to be banned in City Park and Heroes’ Square!

State Treasury: Budapest municipality owns EUR 377.2m in state bonds

Hungarian State Treasury államkincstár

The Budapest municipality owns 135 billion forints (EUR 377.2m) in bonds and more than 27 billion in cash, according to the city council’s balance sheet report submitted on July 20, the Hungarian State Treasury said on Monday.

In an interview to public current affairs channel M1 on Saturday, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán called on the municipality to come to the aid of employees of the hospitality sector, which has been badly hit by the coronavirus epidemic. “It is good news” that the city has some 100 billion forints at its disposal to use as it sees fit, Orbán said.

Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony responded on Facebook on Sunday, saying

the capital did not have money to take over the responsibilities of the central government.

He insisted that the city was “150 billion forints in the red”, and that alongside the contraction caused by the coronavirus epidemic, the government’s austerity measures had eroded the municipality’s resources.

Karácsony called on the government to allocate half of the funding from the European Union’s recovery package to local governments, in proportion to their population.

Socialists and Párbeszéd

Meanwhile, leaders of the opposition Socialists and Párbeszéd said on Monday that helping out the tourism sector hit by the novel coronavirus epidemic was the job of the state and 50 billion forints (EUR 140m) support should be paid to businesses in the sector from the national crisis management fund.

Karácsony, who was re-elected as co-leader of Parbeszed last weekend, told an online press conference broadcast on the Socialists’ Facebook page that a proposal by the Fidesz-Christian Democrats group in Budapest for the municipal council to pay for this task had been ‘hypocritical’.

In addition to the extra costs incurred, the coronavirus epidemic also resulted in significant funding drawn away from the municipal council, which, he added, lacked the resources to take over state tasks.

Socialist leader Bertalan Tóth said

the government was treating businesses in Budapest like “stepchildren”.

He called on the government to support Hungarians SMEs instead of lining the pockets of oligarchs.

orbán in mask
Read alsoOrbán: Coronavirus must not be allowed to paralyse Hungary again

Budapest district mayor demands halt to further building in City Park

Liget Budapest - A SANAA tervei szerint épül az Új Nemzeti Ga

Csaba Horváth, the mayor of Budapest’ Zugló district, on Wednesday demanded that the central government stop any further construction projects in City Park (Városliget) and dismantle metal barriers erected two years ago around the sites in question.

Horváth, group leader of the opposition Socialists in the City Assembly, told a press conference that the government must respect the will of more than 80 percent of Budapest residents, as well as keeping its own promise not to go against decisions of the metropolitan council.

“We’ve acknowledged the presence of the already completed buildings and swallowed the fact,”

Horváth said, adding however that he saw no reason to maintain the barriers once landscaping work was finished, unless they served “someone’s purpose to still consider the park a construction site”.

Horvath said that

planned new buildings such as the National Gallery, the House of Innovation and the Városliget Theatre “cannot be ever built” in the park.

“The residents of Budapest deserve to have 200-year-old City Park, the capital’s oldest, maintained as a public park and not sold as a building site,” he said.

Liget Budapest - A SANAA tervei szerint épül az Új Nemzeti Ga
Read alsoBudapest district mayor demands halt to further building in City Park