Budapest assembly committee adopts report concerning alleged City Hall sale plans

The report, drafted by Tamas Soproni of the Momentum Movement, the mayor of the 6th district, said no committee member had come up with any evidence to support the alleged wrongdoing. The document also established that the municipality’s property sales practices were “entirely transparent”.

The committee also voted down an alternative report by Peter Kovacs, the (Fidesz) mayor of the 16th district, who insisted the municipal assembly’s left-wing majority “has, from the beginning, sought to deny or belittle the facts that have come to light”.

Kovacs insisted on his own conclusion that “Budapest’s leadership did indeed want to sell City Hall”. The documents available, leaked recordings, and testimonies of witnesses heard by the committee all pointed to “the likelihood of plans” to sell the building.

Before the vote, Socialist deputy Csaba Horvath said Kovacs’s report was not objective and could not be adopted, while Soproni accused Kovacs of peddling government propaganda.

In a statement, Kovacs said former Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai had not made himself available to the committee. “It is up to the investigative authorities to find out about his role in the operations of the municipality and its property sales,” he added.

Kovacs said the committee had been “doomed to failure from the beginning” as leftist deputies were in a majority and they “openly expressed their preconceptions”.