The Hungarian Prime Minister stated this Monday, April 6, that the country is going through a very critical period, following an alleged attempt to sabotage a gas pipeline in Serbia, and once again admitted Ukraine’s involvement, something that the Serbian authorities have already denied.
“The country’s energy security is not a campaign issue, it is a government issue, and that requires calm, strategic calm, not theater, not clowning, but a calm, firm and sure hand,” said Viktor Orbán, quoted by the news website Euronews.
Serbian authorities opened an investigation on Sunday after Army and Police agents found two backpacks and two large packages of explosives with detonators near the Balkan Stream gas pipeline, in the town of Kanjizaon the border with Hungary.
The Prime Minister convened an extraordinary Defense Council on Sunday afternoon and announced the strengthening military protection of the Hungarian section of the gas pipeline, an extension of the Turk Stream, which supplies Serbia and Hungary with Russian natural gas.
This Monday morning, Orbán went to Kiskundorozsma, near the border with Serbia, accompanied by Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó, to inspect the military reinforcement.
“It is not yet known who prepared the sabotage operation against the Turk Stream gas pipeline. The Serbs are investigating, but at the same time, what happened fits into a series of events, and the Ukrainians have this capability and are willing and able to do something like this,” said the prime minister to the press on site.
The head of the Hungarian government stated that he would not further harm relations between Budapest and Kiev by accusing Ukraine without knowing the facts and that he would wait for the investigations to be completed.
After highlighting that the country is going through a very critical moment, in the last week of the campaign for next Sunday’s legislative elections, Viktor Orbán emphasized: “I recommend everyone not to see this as a campaign issue. I see that it was not us who made this a campaign, but our opponents.”
The Serbian Armed Forces said the explosive device was manufactured in the United States and suspected immigrants were involved.
“It’s not true that the Ukrainians tried to sabotage it”said Duro Jovanić, director of the anti-terrorism service of the Serbian Armed Forces.
“We had information that an individual belonging to a group of migrants is trying to carry out an act of sabotage against the gas infrastructure”, said the Serbian official, quoted by the Hungarian online newspaper Világgazdasag.
“According to our information, this is an adult fit for military service, who will certainly be arrested. The only question is whether the investigation will last three days or several months,” he added.
The Subotica Public Prosecutor’s Office (Serbia) has opened proceedings for the illegal production, possession and distribution of weapons and explosives, as well as the crime of sabotage, the same online newspaper reports.
According to the Hungarian press, Viktor Orbán was asked this Monday about the statement by the leader of the opposition party Tisza, Péter Magyar, who stated that the Russians conspired with the Serbs and that Viktor Orbán was behind the scenes.
“And the Martians, of course”, joked the Prime Minister, who argued that the matter “requires more seriousness”.
The Prime Minister, candidate for a fifth term as head of the Hungarian Government, warned that if this gas pipeline is blocked, “it will be a big problem”.
“Ukraine has already blocked a gas pipeline in 2022, but by increasing the capacity of the Turk Stream, we are able to supply Hungary with energy. If this supply is interrupted, hundreds of thousands of Hungarian families will be left without energy,” he warned.
Orbán stated that Hungary’s energy security problem goes beyond the election period.
He insisted that Europe is heading towards an extremely serious energy crisis, due to the conflict in the Middle East, once again defending the suspension of sanctions on Russian gas and oil.
“The threat to Hungarian infrastructure will persist until the negative decision on Russian energy is reversed in Europe and the normal pre-war order is restored, when energy could be imported into the European Union from all directions, including from the East,” maintained.
On Sunday, Ukraine denied any involvement in the case.
However, Moscow has already reacted: the spokeswoman for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, classified the act as a direct threat to Hungarian independence.
The incident occurs at the beginning of the last week of the Hungarian legislative campaign, in which Péter Magyar appears as the favorite in the polls, potentially removing Viktor Orbán from power after 16 years.
Leave a Reply