In a statement, the Budapest chapter of Fidesz said Mayor Gergely Karácsony had personally signed the agreement and suggested that he was preparing to abandon the deal using the will of residents as an excuse.

Karácsony said earlier in the day that a local “residents’ meeting” would decide whether a current ban on cars on the bridge should be maintained. He also said the government had not made “a single forint of the agreed grant” available as yet.