Budapest mayor says Hungary can become normal European country after Orbán era

When the new Hungarian parliament convened on 9 May and Péter Magyar's Tisza party cabinet was sworn in, the mood in Budapest's city hall was not simply relief. It was the recognition that a system built over 16 years had not merely lost an election but, in the words of mayor Gergely Karácsony, collapsed. Speaking in Bratislava days after the inauguration, Karácsony described watching ministerial confirmation hearings where policies his administration had championed for six years, a Budapest Act, ecological standards, curbs on advertising clutter, were suddenly echoed back by the new government.

A cabinet that sounds like Budapest's wish list

Karácsony singled out several appointments. The minister for local government declared that Budapest could not be treated as an enemy and that a Budapest Act was overdue. The environment minister set out ecological requirements the mayor considers vital. The transport and development minister spoke of dismantling the advertising overload that has smothered the historic centre. Even the minister for investments, Dávid Vitézy, is a familiar figure: Karácsony's former mayoral rival, a transport expert long associated with Fidesz circles but respected across party lines. "Our disputes were about personnel and power issues, but there was more we agreed on," Karácsony said. "Now everyone is in their own domain."

The new prime minister's guided tours of the ministry buildings in Buda Castle, rebuilt or refurbished at enormous cost, have drawn particular attention. Magyar has said his government does not wish to keep them in their current function. Karácsony agrees. "The centre of a 21st-century, service-oriented state cannot be in the Castle. The Castle should be a cultural and tourist stronghold." He estimates the project cost around 800 billion forints (€2 billion), including buildings without a conceived function. "Behind this was the political intention of Viktor Orbán to draw, at taxpayers' expense, a line of political continuity that does not exist. This is political time travel and an urban madness."

Budapest's finances: a five-year hole

Beneath the symbolism lies a brutal balance sheet. Karácsony says the last six years were a nightmare for local governments. Covid, the energy crisis, inflation and what he calls deliberate political austerity measures withdrew an "incomprehensible amount of funding". Budapest is rolling forward a debt that will certainly take five years to work off. Other cities are in critical condition too; Budapest simply receives more attention. The solidarity tax, a redistributive mechanism through which the central government reallocates revenue from wealthier municipalities, did not amount over five years to as much as the Castle buildings cost. Karácsony calls it "a kind of power hubris that is incomprehensible."

Immediate steps can preserve solvency. The new local government minister has signalled urgency. Budapest will submit restrained proposals, aware that the national budget is also in terrible shape. Longer term, the Budapest Act first proposed in 2019 remains the structural fix: the Hungarian system of local government needs re-regulation, and Budapest's special position, its strategies must align with the metropolitan area and wider region, requires a dedicated legal framework. Vitézy's presence in the investment portfolio helps; he knows the projects, including the Rákosrendező development, which Karácsony believes contributed to Fidesz's fall.

The Castle complex: cultural quarter or hotel district?

Karácsony has not yet set foot inside the new ministry buildings. He imagines cultural institutions there, though concedes they were not constructed for that purpose. "I could imagine these buildings much better even as hotels than as ministries." A public debate is needed. The symbolism is potent: kings resided in the Castle, then the Horthy-era leadership. Moving ministries out breaks a visual language of authority that Orbán cultivated. The prime minister's decision to open the buildings for public viewing was, in Karácsony's view, "absolutely right. This money was taken away from Budapest as well, you can compare the state of the road network with these buildings."

Trauma, civil society and the regime-change concert

A minor diplomatic flap preceded the inauguration. Karácsony scheduled a "regime-closing" concert for 8 May, the day before the new parliament's first session. Magyar objected; they reached agreement. Karácsony stands by the event: it thanked civil society organisations that carried democratic culture through the harder years. "Hungarian society is terribly traumatised," he said. Minister Bálint Ruff acknowledged those traumas at his hearing, and Magyar himself apologised to the organisations for the attacks and smear campaigns they endured. "This is how it had to be." Karácsony hopes the organisational dispute signals nothing deeper.

No criticism yet, but the budget will test sincerity

Asked whether he sees anything to criticise in Tisza's first steps, Karácsony answered: "Honestly, I cannot name anything." He was impressed by how clearly ministers see the problems and how sincerely committed they appear. "Over the past 16 years Hungary set off in an extremely wrong direction; we are coming back from minus." He adds, with a touch of pride, that the fact these proposals are now considered important is partly due to Budapest's local politics of the last six years, symbolic and practical resistance that showed the right direction. The test will come when the budget meets the promises.

Early local elections: a Fidesz talking point

Speculation about early local elections has surfaced. Karácsony dismisses it as a Fidesz mayoral anxiety, not a Tisza proposal. Magyar has denied it. "We are talking about directly elected politicians, not puppets appointed by those in power," Karácsony said. He considers the idea nonsensical and at odds with the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The real question is how Hungarian politics renews itself after the old opposition parties were wiped out alongside Fidesz's dominance.

The opposition vacuum and Fidesz's electoral trap

Karácsony is blunt: a functioning democracy cannot exist without an opposition, and Fidesz cannot fulfil that role. Its politicians' reactions suggest they have understood nothing. Nor does he want Fidesz, or the far-right Mi Hazánk, as a significant opposition actor. The electoral system Orbán built was the main pillar of his power; it has now collapsed back onto him. Fidesz suppressed so much social energy that it burst out at once. Had Fidesz created a proportional system, the defeat would not have been crushing. A disproportional system is a double-edged sword.

Voters learned that without a single strong opposition party, Fidesz could not be unseated. The 2022 united opposition alliance was not credible; the war contributed to its defeat. Tisza's landslide also reflects Fidesz's internal dynamics, some call it a party split, but Tisza contains liberal and progressive figures too. Meanwhile, the left is in crisis across Europe, especially in Central Europe. The old opposition parties, from which Karácsony himself came, must reinvent themselves from scratch.

Karácsony's conversation with Vitézy has already moved to expert level on the billboard issue, a regulatory fix that costs nothing but requires the government to restore tools it previously stripped from the capital. EU funds are the larger lever. "If this political shift had come a year earlier, we would not now have to worry about losing the money from the Recovery Fund," Karácsony said. The mayor's tone is wary optimism. He has seen Hungarian politics pivot before. This time, he argues, the mandate is too large to squander, and the trauma too deep to ignore. The next budget cycle will show whether the new ministers' sincerity survives contact with the treasury.