September 10, 2007

U.S. and Hungary Sign Agreement on Property Exhange, Return of Táncsics Prison
 

U.S. Ambassador to Budapest April H. Foley and Hungary's Minister for Foreign Affairs Kinga Göncz signed an agreement on an exchange of properties between the Governments of the United States and of Hungary. The document sets out that the U.S. returns the historic building known as Táncsics Prison to Hungary.

The Ambassador and the Minister agreed that the Táncsics building complex in the Buda Castle District,  as well as two other U.S.-owned properties in Budapest, will be returned to the Government of Hungary. In return, the Hungarian government vows to renovate the two buildings adjacent to the U.S. Embassy main building on Szabadság tér and give them to the United States to be used as part of a consolidated Embassy complex.
 

The exchange of real estate involving the Táncsics complex was discussed at the meeting of President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Gyurcsány in June 2006 in Budapest. Minister Göncz said at the press conference that they would like to make the prison of 1848 revolutionary and poet Mihály Táncsics available for the public.