366 Post Offices Closed Across Hungary
- 14 Nov 2022 7:26 AM
- Hungary Around the Clock
In Budapest and in several towns, signatures were collected to save post offices from closing, to no avail: on Friday, 366 post offices closed down due to high energy prices.
The government has said the closings will be only temporary.
In Szeged, 12 out of 19 post offices have closed, in Pécs 10 out of 18, and in Győr five.
The opposition has organised protests, but Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in Parliament recently that the only way to save Magyar Posta was to transform it from within.
The temporary closures were announced by Magyar Posta at the end of October, with the official explanation that the company had to reduce energy consumption due to the energy crisis.
Magyar Posta said the closures will affect 210 settlements. In the 101 settlements where there is more than one post office, the remaining offices will have a larger capacity, while other settlements will be served by mobile post offices.
Róbert Dudás, a Jobbik MP, told Orbán in Parliament that the closure of the post offices “could mean the end of life in rural areas”.
The prime minister responded “we have been struggling for a long time with the problem that Magyar Posta is a loss-making company, and EU rules preclude the state from subsidising such a company”. Therefore, Orbán said, Magyar Posta must be restructured and renewed, otherwise its performance will continue to decline. “This is the only way to keep Magyar Posta alive, because the government is forbidden to put money into it,” he said.
Magyar Posta is the largest domestic employer in Hungary, with 26,688 employees. Second is the Mészáros Group, which employs about 25,000 people.
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