Budapest council scraps agenda, mayor sips Unicum amid parking funding dispute

An emergency session of the Budapest City Council, called by the Fidesz-KDNP faction, was abruptly concluded after the agenda was not adopted, lasting less than thirty minutes. In a light-hearted moment, Baranyi Krisztina offered the mayor a bottle of Unicum, which he drank while noting that the drink would help him endure the parking-centralisation compromise. The sole item on the docket was a proposal from the ruling faction to limit the mayor’s voting rights in the Fővárosi Közfejlesztések Tanács (FKT) to cases where the council has given prior approval.

Before the meeting began, Fidesz representative Papp Tibor submitted an amendment insisting that any FKT decision be taken only after the council is fully informed of all relevant data and obligations. The FKT, composed of ten members split evenly between the city and the national government, serves an advisory role rather than legislative power. Recent negotiations between the city and the government have produced a 120-billion-forint one-off grant and plans for a regional transport authority, but the parking-funds centralisation has sparked fierce opposition from district mayors.