The Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) has until next week to reveal whether they provided information to President Klaus Iohannis to back his inflammatory statement last Wednesday, the parliamentary committee supervising SRI has decided. Iohannis accused the ethnic Hungarian minority in Transylvania, the Social Democratic Party and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of plotting to give Transylvania to Hungary.
As proposed by committee secretary Botond Csoma of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (known by its Hungarian acronym of RMDSZ), SRI Director Eduard Hellvig will appear in front of the committee to answer some (uncomfortable) questions on the matter. The exact date of the hearing is yet unknown.
The eight members of the joint standing committee of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate voted 5-3 in favor of receiving a written report on the matter, as two members of the Liberal Party (PNL) and one member of the USR Party voted against it. According to Csoma, the Liberals defended Iohannis with a bunch of nonsense arguments, such as this request isn’t the responsibility of the committee and the intelligence service should not be used for political purposes.
Considering that USR party president Dan Barna condemned Klaus Iohannis’ inflammatory statement last week, Csoma was surprised by the attitude of the USR party member: Stanciu-Viziteu Lucian-Daniel wanted the SRI to file a report on revisionist activities backed by the Hungarian government in Transylvania and to which revisionist organizations the RMDSZ is connected.
“The Chamber of Deputies member said that, to the best of his knowledge, the Hungarian government has been engaged in revisionist efforts since the Treaty of Trianon, and he wanted to obtain more information about this. After the meeting, I asked him if he was serious about his request, and he answered ‘yes’,” Csoma told Transindex.
Apparently, USR party members have a lot of growing up to do to properly execute the duties of their positions – given to them by voters – as does the Romanian president.
Title image: Botond Csoma. Image credit: Zsolt Bereczky
