After last year’s consolidation of HUF 3.4bn, the Government is to settle the remaining debts of the county seat as well, Minister of National Development Zsuzsa Németh announced in Győr on 13 December, 2013. By the end of February, the city is thus to be relieved of a debt burden of HUF 7.8bn altogether.
Between 2010 and 2020, the debt stocks of Hungary doubled, rising to HUF 20 thousand billion. Earlier governments kept widening the range of tasks to be performed by local authorities, without providing coverage for these, however. Settlements were therefore forced to take up loans so as to ensure their everyday liquidity, getting into a debt spiral.
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Through various measures taken since January 2012, the state has taken over from county and local authorities, in several rounds, debts of HUF 884 billion altogether. In the first months of 2014, the Government is to settle the remaining outstanding debts of Hungarian settlements worth a total of some HUF 420 billion.
The city of Győr is to be relieved of about HUF 4.4bn of debts. In order to prevent further indebtedness, the Government has taken back several tasks from settlements that are traditionally performed by the state. Zsuzsa Németh has asked bailed out local authorities to draw up local economic development and growth plans mapping the measures and instruments that would most efficiently serve strengthening their performance.
(Ministry of National Development Communications Department)
