On Tuesday 21 January in Strasbourg, MEPs once again debated Hungary and respect for the rule of law in the country, but this time on the basis of new allegations of spying by Budapest on European officials from OLAF, the European Anti-Fraud Office.
Some of the elected representatives called on the Commission to open an investigation and take firm action if the facts were proven. At the end of 2024, Hungarian media wrote that, from 2015 to 2017, the Hungarian authorities spied on OLAF agents interested in the public lighting projects of Istvan Tiborcz, the son-in-law of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
According to Direkt36, the operation was run from the Information Office (IH), a body responsible for “gathering sensitive foreign information” and which “listened in on agents’ telephone conversations”.
During their missions in Hungary, the investigators were not only listened to, but also “physically followed”, according to Nepszava.
While the Polish Minister for European Affairs, Adam Szłapka, and the European Commissioner for the Budget, Piotr Serafin, preferred not to comment on these allegations of spying and “unverified speculative reports”, as the Polish Minister put it, they reiterated that any interference in people’s private lives by spyware is “unacceptable”; any attempt to circumvent the transparency work of public institutions must also raise the concerns of political leaders, with the Minister calling for these allegations and requests for investigations to be passed on via the available national channels.
The European Commissioner for the Budget, for his part, praised the work of OLAF and pointed out that the Member States have an obligation to ensure that European funds are used properly and to cooperate with OLAF. The European Office had found irregularities in the tenders, he further noted, and had recommended that the Hungarian authorities reimburse 17 billion forints. The Commissioner also highlighted the efforts being made within the Commission to develop the resilience of officials and protect them from espionage attempts.
In the Chamber, Hungarian Socialist MEP Csaba Molnár called on the Commission to open an enquiry and to include the reported facts in the procedure known as the ‘Article 7’ procedure. For the EPP, these allegations are further proof that Viktor Orbán has installed an authoritarian regime in Hungary worthy of Vladimir Putin.
“For a European government to put OLAF under surveillance would be intolerable”, commented Sophie Wilmès (Renew Europe, Belgian), calling on the Commission and the institutions to take a firm stand against institutional espionage.
The PfE and ENS groups, for their part, condemned a debate based on unproven facts, and dating back some ten years. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)