Socialists to approach Austrian authorities concerning Strache affair

The opposition Socialists will turn to Austrian authorities to find out about possible "Hungarian aspects of the Strache affair", Socialist MEP Istvan Ujhelyi told a press conference on Monday. Referring to recently published video footage, Ujhelyi quoted Heinz-Christian Strache, who resigned his post of Austria's vice-chancellor at the weekend, as saying that he would "build a media environment similar to that of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban". In the footage, Strache mentioned Austrian businessman Heinrich Pecina as an "investor who bought and prepared every Hungarian paper for Orban in the past 15 years", Ujhelyi said. The Hungarian public has the right to know about "the relationship between Orban and Pecina" and about possible "deals" under which Pecina had been able to purchase and shut down national daily Nepszabadsag and "a large part of the (Hungarian) media market".