Hungary – For several weeks, Gergely Karácsony, mayor of Budapest, one of the leading figures of the opposition to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, has been the subject of successive revelations accusing him of wanting to sell real estate belonging to the municipality of the Hungarian capital, including the main Budapest City Hall building, a listed building dating from the 18th century.
What is now called “the case of the city hall” really started with an article published on 4 November, 2021 by the Index portal, which wrote that “business circles close to the coalition” at the head of the Hungarian capital were preparing to sell the city hall: “The Capital’s management is looking for a buyer for the extremely valuable and protected real estate complex […] of the city hall […] business circles close to the coalition which rules the capital have taken the first steps towards selling the city hall. » The portal does not cite its source, but it likely is the first of the anonymous videos we discuss in the rest of this article.
The mayor of Budapest had formally denied the same day on Facebook: “Today was the last time I read Index. […] The somewhat unusual article, […] reveals, of course, that the author only observes that ‘business circles close to the coalition which rules the capital have taken the first steps towards selling the city hall, and concludes that the municipality has the intention of selling. […] The author of the article confused the NER and the municipality of Budapest: in our country, economic circles do not determine decisions in terms of asset management. The Municipality of Budapest has recently taken a number of decisions regarding the City Hall building complex, such as the renovation of the Merlin Theatre building and the call for tenders for the City Hall Park, [but] no decision has been made regarding the sale of the property, for which the municipality is not seeking a buyer.”
