Hungary may have been spying on EU officials — investigation

Hungary' s intelligence services may have illegally spied on European Union officials. This probably happened during their visit to the country.

This is stated in an investigation by De Tijd and Direkt36.

Spying on EU officials in Hungary

It is known that employees of the Hungarian Information Office (IH) conducted surveillance of representatives of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF).

The activities of the Hungarian special services took place in the period from 2015 to 2017, when OLAF employees were investigating companies associated with Prime Minister Viktor Orban. 

The journalists' investigation states that the Hungarian special services could have used the following methods:

• Searches of hotel rooms belonging to EU delegations;
• Hacking laptops to access and download confidential information;
• Wiretapping phone calls;
• Physical surveillance of officials during car trips.

The head of the press service of the Hungarian Prime Minister's Office, Bertalan Hawassi, responded to a query about the government's attitude to the investigation.

"We are not dealing with fake news," he said.

However, as the publication noted, Hungary has previously been accused of hacking into the phones of journalists, activists, and opposition figures. Also in 2021, the government recognized the purchase of Israeli spyware Pegasus.

As a reminder, US President-elect Donald Trump and Viktor Orban held several phone conversations to discuss the situation in Ukraine.

Earlier, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó strongly condemned the US authorization of long-range missile strikes on Russian territory.