Budapest - Hungarian police Wednesday moved in to break up a protest by the environmental group Greenpeace demanding to know what the government is doing with 132 million dollars from the sale of carbon credits.

The activists set up a green tent in front of the Prime Minister's Office in the Hungarian capital Budapest, and brandished placards calling for the money from the sale of part of its carbon emissions quota to be used for environmental projects.

Police ordered the 14 demonstrators to disperse, allowing the protest, by Hungarian, Austrian, Polish, Slovak and Romanian activists to proceed for two hours before moving in and making arrests.

The Hungarian environment ministry said earlier this month that the cash generated from the sale of 8.6 million tonnes of carbon credits to Spain and Belgium since 2008 would be pumped into environmental projects.

Greenpeace accused the government of dragging its feet over allocating the money, and spoke of a "suspicious secrecy' over the planned use of the funds.

The environment ministry responded later in the day by saying it would shortly announce details of an environmentally friendly buildings project as part of a new "Green Development System".

The police arrested twelve of the demonstrators, later issuing a statement saying the protest had not been officially registered, and that the activists had been disrupting the orderly working of parliament.(dpa)