Responding to remarks by Gergely Gulyas, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office, Karacsony said the meeting would take place at 5pm on Monday at the Kelenfold bus depot.

The assembly will reiterate a September resolution in which it accepted a State Audit Office report concluding that the municipality cannot meet its legal obligation to fund public services while paying state-mandated contributions, he said.

"To underscore its significance," Karacsony said he would personally deliver the decision to the Prime Minister's Office and urged residents to gather at Clark Adam Square at 6.30 pm for what he called "Budapest Pride 2.0".

He noted that, despite Gulyas' claim at Thursday's regular government press conference that the government sought to "save Budapest", the Hungarian Treasury had withdrawn 6.2 billion forints (€16.2 million) from the city's accounts.

Days earlier, Karacsony had hand-delivered a letter to Prime Minister Viktor Orban detailing the scale, causes, and unpaid government debts to the municipality. "This withdrawal is clearly unlawful," he said, citing a Supreme Court ruling that the measure lacked legal basis.

Addressing Gulyas' statement that the government would intervene once the assembly formally declared insolvency, Karacsony dismissed the condition as "pointless, but we'll play the game."

He argued that the government's dispute was "not with the city leadership or voters -- two-thirds of whom recognise that austerity measures caused this crisis -- but with the courts, the Constitutional Court, and the Audit Office."

"If this is what it takes for the government to fulfil its constitutional duties," the assembly would again affirm its earlier decision, he said.

Karácsony insisted his actions were "not a political game" but a fight to ensure 27,000 municipal workers received their January salaries and to protect the city's operations.

He added that he fully supported the stance of the Budapest branch of the Tisza party, and the assembly would record the city's dire financial state while demanding the government uphold its constitutional obligations.

Without intervention, he warned, Budapest would face bankruptcy, blaming "unlawful, exploitative government policies" for the crisis.
 

Source: MTI – Hungary’s national news agency since 1881. While MTI articles are usually factual, some may contain political bias, and readers should be aware that such content does not reflect the position of XpatLoop, which is neutral and independent.

Since the goal of XpatLoop is to keep readers well briefed, right across the spectrum of opinions, MTI items are shared to ensure readers are aware of all narratives within the local media.

XpatLoop believes in empowering readers to form their own views through complete and comprehensive coverage. To facilitate this XpatLoop has a balanced range of news partners, as you can see when you surf around XpatLoop.com

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