Brandstätter: “The federal government must finally act on the gas phase-out and the fight against espionage.”
Vienna (OTS) – “To describe the Federal President’s statements after the death of Alexei Navalny as ‘outrageous rhetoric’ is unacceptable,” says NEOS foreign policy spokesman and EU leading candidate Helmut Brandstätter about the protest note from the Russian embassy in Vienna. “Vladimir Putin is responsible for the poisoning, imprisonment and death of Navalny and Vladimir Putin has turned Russia into a murderous regime – a regime that is responsible for many thousands of deaths, in Ukraine, but also in Russia itself. That’s so clear It’s not impertinent to say it, it’s the bitter truth.”
NEOS are therefore once again demanding that the Russian ambassador be summoned to the Foreign Office immediately. Brandstätter: “In such a conversation, Minister Schallenberg can also emphatically convey to Putin’s representative in Austria his demand for an independent investigation into the events.”
Get out of Russian gas, put an end to the spy paradise
But apart from that, NEOS are also demanding that Austria finally take more decisive action against Russia – “instead of just telling Moscow how the FPÖ is doing,” said Brandstätter. “Firstly, the government must quickly implement the legal phase-out of Russian gas, because with the billions in payments, Austria is helping to finance Putin’s deadly activities every day. And secondly, it is high time for the ÖVP and the Greens to take decisive action against Russian espionage on Austrian soil. After Putin’s attack on Ukraine, most EU countries expelled diplomatic and technical embassy staff from the country on a large scale, except Orban’s Hungary and Austria. Austria has only expelled eight of around 270 accredited embassy employees. And this despite the fact that it is assumed in the EU that around a third of embassy staff are spies. There is no question that there must continue to be diplomatic exchange. However, the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations would easily allow Austria to limit the number of diplomats to the bare minimum. This must finally happen. The federal government can no longer stand idly by, it is endangering the security of all of us.”
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