In his introduction to the package, Mayor Gergely Karacsony said the housing crisis in Budapest called for the initiatives of the city and its districts, targeted use of European Union funding, and a more active role by the central government.

Under the adopted package, the government is requested to publish without delay tenders for municipal housing programmes to be financed from EU structural funds.

The body has authorised the mayor to propose that the government should provide capital funding to municipalities as well as subsidised loans to increase the municipal rental stock. The package also aims to obtain funds from central coffers or EU funding to top up municipal subsidies for energy-saving home renovations.

The assembly expressed its approval of the government's position that the practice of using flats in Budapest for tourism should be restricted, but suggested that the government's two-year moratorium should be further shortened "to a legal minimum".

Meanwhile, Szentkiralyi: Multiple Fidesz proposals voted down by Budapest assembly

The Budapest municipal assembly voted down several of ruling Fidesz's proposals concerning housing affordability, Alexandra Szentkiralyi, the head of the party's Budapest chapter, said on Thursday.

Fidesz's proposals had been aimed at getting the city council to take more effective steps towards resolving the housing crisis, Szentkiralyi told public news channel M1.

She said the municipality's housing agency had only managed to rent out eight flats over the last six months.

"The capital will be receiving billions in European Union funds, and the proposal was to use those funds to help build dorms or company flats instead of channelling the money into … the housing agency," she said.

"There's no shame in admitting that you can't do something and asking for help," Szentkiralyi said. "If the city council is incapable of resolving the housing problem, the government will help."

She added that she had held "promising talks" in the matter with the national economy minister.
 

Meanwhile, she said the city assembly had also voted down a proposal from Fidesz which would have called for exploring whether city housing stock could be used to resolve the housing crisis.

Szentkiralyi added, at the same time, that the assembly had approved a proposal to look into the city council's "inefficient" model aimed at keeping utility prices low.

Szentkiralyi: Tisza votes down low household energy bills 'yet again'

The opposition Tisza Party in the city assembly has yet again voted against the government scheme which saves Hungarian households hundreds of thousands of forints each year on utility bills, Alexandra Szentkiralyi, the leader of the Fidesz-Christian Democrat group in the assembly said on Thursday.

Szentkiralyi said the party led by Peter Magyar had effectively voted in the energy committee to abolish the scheme, and she cited him as saying previously that the country had been held back because of the "useless" subsidy.

She noted that Fidesz put forward a motion in the city assembly on protecting and maintaining the utility scheme. "But all they could say -- led by the Tisza Party -- was that they did not support our proposal, and they voted it down," she said.

The Fidesz politician said Hungarians paid the lowest utility bills in Europe, yet Tisza would "put an end to this in Hungary and Budapest as well".

"They have proven this for the second time..." she added.
 

Source: 
MTI - The Hungarian News Agency, founded in 1881.

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