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JOBBIK CALLS FOR PROBE OF POSSIBLE HUNGARIAN TIES TO STRACHE AFFAIR

 

Opposition nationalist Jobbik is initiating the establishment of an investigation committee to determine whether there are any Hungarian ties to the Strache affair, party spokesman György Szilágyi said at a press conference.
Jobbik also wants parliament’s national security committee to meet as soon as possible to discuss the matter, Szilágyi said. He noted that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had met with former Austrian Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache earlier in May. Strache resigned after a video emerged of him offering state contracts to a woman claiming to be a rich Russian in exchange for support in the 2017 election campaign. Szilágyi said Strache had brought himself down, “and Viktor Orbán, too”, as “Strache wanted to put Austria’s biggest tabloid in the service of the Freedom Party of Europe, following the example of Hungary, at a corrupt talk with an oligarch”. He said if the matter brought Strache’s downfall, there should be consequences, too, for the “already operating system” in Hungary. Szilágyi raised the questions of whether Russia was involved in the establishment of the Hungarian system, whether the contract for an upgrade of the Paks nuclear power plant or the relocation of the “Russian spy bank” to Hungary may have played a role in the matter. He said a parliamentary committee should also determine whether Heinrich Pecina, with whom Orbán met, and who bought a number of national newspapers, is “the Russians’ strawperson”.