Hungary Has Been Accused Of Spying On The EU

• 9.10.2025, 16:42

The European Commission will set up a team to investigate.

The European Commission will create a special group to investigate information about spying operations of the Hungarian intelligence against officials of the EU bodies. European Commission spokesman Balasz Uzvari said this at a briefing on October 9, "Interfax-Ukraine".

He noted that Europe has taken into account all reports on the matter and takes the information seriously.

"We remain committed to protecting Commission staff, information and Commission networks from illegal intelligence gathering activities. This is now an operational security issue, so I won't be able to comment much, but I can say that we will set up an internal team to investigate these allegations," Uzhvari said.

The story is a joint investigation by German newspaper Spiegel, Belgian newspaper De Tijd and Hungarian independent group Direkt36. The journalists concluded that one of the spies turned out to be a certain V., who in 2015-2017 was seconded to Brussels and was under diplomatic cover.

His boss was at that time the Hungarian ambassador to the EU Oliver Varghei, who is now a European commissioner.

The spy allegedly tried to recruit a European Commission official, was interested not only in political affairs, but also in various kinds of rumors and gossip. The meetings took place every few months. According to the journalist's interlocutor, V. proposed ideas according to which there would be more Hungarians in the EU structures, and afterwards even offered money for cooperation, but the official allegedly refused.

According to the investigation, Hungary pressured its "spies" and demanded results, which caused some of them to contact through unprotected channels. This is likely what led to the group's exposure in 2017.