Austria has said no face-to-face talks took place with Hungary’s water and climate policy state secretary Ágnes Kelemen, contradicting the explanation given by the Hungarian Government for her absence abroad during the country’s worst drought emergency in decades.
Hungarian broadcaster HírTV reported that the Austrian ministry responsible for water management said contact with Kelemen had been limited to a telephone call. Fidesz parliamentary group leader János Bóka said the Austrian side had told the press there had been no official in-person meeting with her.
Bóka, who served as EU affairs minister under Viktor Orbán, first raised the case in early August. He said it was cynical for the official responsible for the sector to be out of the country while households were being asked to cut water and electricity use and firms to curb production.
Living environment minister László Gajdos rejected that account in a video posted on Facebook. He said Kelemen had a holiday booked but was sent instead to Austria to assess conditions on the Danube and speak to the Austrian water management director-general.
Prime Minister Magyar said she had travelled at his request for important talks. Kelemen has issued no statement and told HírTV she did not wish to discuss the matter.
Fidesz MP Péter Takács said no documentation of any meeting had been produced. Several Fidesz MPs have called on her to resign.
The dispute has followed the first full shutdown of the Paks Nuclear Power Plant in its 44-year history, after the Danube fell to minus 131cm at the site on August 1, below the record of minus 98cm set in 2018. The four Soviet-built reactors, which normally supply about 40 per cent of Hungarian electricity, draw cooling water from the river.
The Government ordered most rail freight to halt between 5pm and 10pm, told public sector staff to work from home and switched off floodlighting on public buildings. Márk Radnai, deputy chairman of the governing Tisza party, put the extra cost of imported power at 100 billion to 200 billion forints (€250 million to €500 million).
The European Commission said it stood ready to convene emergency electricity talks. Rain in the Austrian catchment area has since lifted the river and units at Paks have been restarted, with Magyar saying voluntary consumption cuts were no longer required.
Fidesz MP Balázs Orbán, political director to Viktor Orbán until May, wrote on X that the Government had been caught unprepared and had put Hungary’s energy security at risk. He said a country could not be run “through Facebook posts”.
Tisza won the April 12 election with a two-thirds majority and has since amended the constitution and moved to replace the head of state, steps Fidesz has described as a political vendetta.
