Tarlós: Budapest May Accept Nationalisation Of Transport Company BKV
- 7 Dec 2015 8:00 AM
The city of Budapest is ready to turn cash-strapped transport company BKV over to central government ownership but it will not accede to the nationalisation of the Budapest Transport Centre (BKK), Mayor of Budapest István Tarlós said on Friday. Government office chief János Lázár said on Thursday that if there is no change in BKV’s long-term financing, he would support efforts by the Prime Minister’s Office to “show what they could do from the same budget that the city has for running the public transport system”.
Tarlós told a press conference: “This is not a rational dispute”, adding that he would “await with interest whether the state will indeed take over BKV”.
According to Lázár, the government had already felt ready to take over BKV back in 2011, Tarlós said, adding that this policy did not seem to be shared across the government.
But if the Municipal Assembly votes to approve the plan and the prime minister and economy ministers also agree with Lázár’s “grand idea”, Budapest would only be getting rid of its “only insolvable problem”.
The Socialist opposition said nationalising BKV was a bad idea. Csaba Horváth, a Budapest councillor for the party, said the solution would be for the government to guarantee the extra 40 billion forints that is missing from the city’s public transport budget.
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MTI photo: Soós Lajos
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