A spokesperson for the European Commission said on Thursday that it would investigate reports that Hungary had engaged in covert intelligence activity in Brussels.
A joint investigation by German, Belgian, Hungarian, and Austrian media outlets – Der Spiegel, De Tijd, Direkt36 and Der Standard – alleged on Thursday that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government operated an intelligence network in Brussels between 2012 and 2019.
As per AFP, EU spokesperson Balazs Ujvari said that the bloc plans to set up an “internal group” to investigate the allegations.
“We remain committed to protecting commission staff, commission information and networks from illicit intelligence gathering actions,” he added.
The media investigation claims that the Hungarian intelligence service attempted to recruit Hungarian nationals working for the EU to spy for them – putting them under pressure to leak sensitive information or, where possible, change the wording of EU reports to more closely reflect the strategic aims of Budapest.
It further alleges that Hungary’s then Ambassador to the EU Oliver Varhelyi, who now serves as European Commissioner for Health and Animal Welfare, led the operation between 2015 and 2019.
Writing on X, Hungarian spokesperson Zoltan Kovacs described the allegations as “nothing more than a smear campaign against Hungary — orchestrated by foreign intelligence services.”
“They cannot accept that Hungary stands for peace, so they will stop at nothing to drag us into war,” he added.
Orban has had a stormy relationship with the EU for most of his 14 years in power – due in large part to what the European Parliament once described as his government’s “deliberate and systematic efforts” to undermine European values.
In the same 2022 report, European lawmakers concluded that Hungary no longer met the criteria to be described as a democracy – under Orban, they said, it had become a “hybrid regime of electoral autocracy.”
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, however, Budapest’s relationship with Brussels has come close to boiling point.
Hungary is one of few EU states to align itself with Moscow – blocking sanctions against Russia, blocking aid to Ukraine, and attempting to block Ukraine and its neighbour Moldova from acceding to the EU.
The violation of Ukrainian airspace by Hungarian drones, in the wake of several similar violations of European airspace by Russia, is one of several diplomatic scuffles in recent weeks.