"The government will subsidise Budapest public transport company BKV to the tune of Ft 10-12 billion this year, it emerged after talks between mayor Gábor Demszky and Finance Ministry state secretary László Keller at the Finance Ministry on Saturday.The pair established that neither the central nor the Budapest budget is sufficient to adequately subsidise BKV, and therefore the company must receive funding from proceeds of sales of the city’s assets in the short term. BKV has debts of Ft 80 billion.
Urban Transport Workers Trade Union Federation vice president Attila Gulyás told Népszabadság that BKV staff went out on strike not just to ensure funding, but to also block the planned cuts to the number of services, an issue that was not discussed at the meeting. Strike committee spokesman Gábor Nemes told Magyar Hírlap on Sunday that unless the unions see safeguards that the state will settle the funding problems, they will strike for several more days."
Source: Hungary Around the Clock.
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21.04.2008