BRUSSELS — The European Commission is facing an escalating crisis of trust as MEPs demand answers over what it knew about an alleged Hungarian spy ring operating out of the country’s embassy in Brussels.
EU lawmakers will grill the Commission on Wednesday over this month’s allegations that intelligence officers for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government attempted to recruit EU officials as spies between 2012 and 2018.
Hungarian officials working in the EU institutions described the network to POLITICO as an open secret in the Belgian capital. The alleged espionage raises questions as to whether Olivér Várhelyi — who ran the embassy during the latter years the spying is alleged to have taken place — should be a European commissioner.
The Commission confirmed it is investigating the allegations internally. Belgium’s intelligence services will cooperate with the Commission’s investigation, according to a person familiar with the matter who was granted anonymity to discuss details of the probe. Some MEPs say Várhelyi should resign if the probe finds he is linked to the alleged spy network. One NGO said Várhelyi should resign now.
Várhelyi told von der Leyen last week that he was “not aware” of the alleged Hungarian efforts to recruit spies in Brussels, according to a Commission spokesperson.
Some MEPs said there were warnings to the Commission at the time.
“There had already been red flags beforehand,” said Greens co-chair Terry Reintke. “The Commission has to really do their job now, investigate, and then, I think, calling for resignation and removing Várhelyi is — if this becomes obvious in this investigation — the next logical step.”
If the Commission was aware of the alleged Hungarian spying, it also raises the question of what action, if any, it took at the time.
“There is an indication that people, having been approached by the Hungarians within the Commission, flagged this to the Commission services,” said Greens MEP Daniel Freund. “And nothing ever happened.” He added this was information he had “heard indirectly.”
Protecting staff
The Commission did not respond to a request for comment on the allegations. A Commission spokesperson has previously said it “takes such allegations seriously because of the implications for the security and integrity of Commission operations. We are committed to protecting Commission staff, information and networks from illicit intelligence-gathering.”
Freund is one of several MEPs from different groups — including the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and centrist Renew — who are also calling for a political inquiry by a European Parliament committee into the allegations of Hungarian spying at EU institutions. This would also demand answers from the Commission’s top officials as to whether they were tipped off by staffers a decade ago.
S&D chair Iratxe García told POLITICO the group supports looking for “an instrument to carry out accountability, a follow-up on this issue of the espionages.”
However, the center-right European People’s Party would oppose a political inquiry committee, its spokesperson Daniel Köster told POLITICO, meaning the instrument is unlikely to be used. To secure approval, the initiative would require support from the EPP, the largest political group.
Elio Di Rupo, Belgium’s prime minister at the moment the alleged spying was supposed to have begun, told POLITICO he hadn’t heard of the allegations at that time. “There was no sign at that time of what we are speaking about now,” he said. “Absolutely nothing.”
The criticism isn’t just coming from lawmakers. Von der Leyen is also under pressure from civil society to fire Várhelyi.
The Good Lobby Profs NGO argued that fresh revelations this week — including the former head of Hungarian intelligence confirming the existence of the espionage network — “significantly strengthens the credibility of earlier claims” and justifies Várhelyi’s resignation.
What did the Commission know?
Several people who worked with Várhelyi in Brussels told POLITICO that it was common knowledge in the city that a spy network was operating from the permanent representation. They were all granted anonymity to speak openly on the sensitive subject.
One of these people said he had been approached by a staffer from the permanent representation to be a spy, and that his colleagues had raised it with their superiors at the EU institutions — raising questions as to how much the Commission might have known at the time.
“There’s two options,” the official said. “That the European Commission didn’t know and learnt [about the spy ring] from articles. If that’s the case, that’s a disaster.
“The other is that they knew and didn’t act. The real question is why did they let this spy network function without any controls?
“Again, there’s two options. They knew but they didn’t have the measures to step up against it. Or they know it but found it to be so amateur that they thought that they had managed it.”
Orbán’s political rival, Péter Magyar, who also worked at the Hungarian permanent representation under Várhelyi, accused him last week of holding back information about his time as an ambassador.
“In my opinion, Olivér Várhelyi, the current EU Commissioner and former EU Ambassador (and my former boss), did not reveal the whole truth when he denied this during the official investigation the other day,” Magyar wrote in a Facebook post.
“It was a common fact at the EU Embassy in Brussels, that during the period of János Lázár’s ministry in 2015-2018, secret service people were deployed to Brussels,” he continued.
Hungariang government minister Lázár, who oversaw the Hungarian intelligence service while Várhelyi worked as ambassador, said last week that although he didn’t recall “the exact details, my duty is to protect my country,” adding: “If Hungarian intelligence had gone to Brussels … I would honor them, not reprimand them.”
Track record
The spying allegations also raise the question of why von der Leyen sought to keep Várhelyi in place. Several people with knowledge of her support for him say the president intervened to put pressure on MEPs to accept Várhelyi as commissioner in 2024, after he was forced to undergo another round of written questions from lawmakers who remained unconvinced.
“The president(-elect)’s role is in the process of candidate proposals from the member states, the agreement of the list with the Council, and the presentation of the whole college [of commissioners],” a European Commission spokesperson said. “After that it is in the hands of the European Parliament.”
Várhelyi is currently health commissioner. In von der Leyen’s first term he was in charge of EU enlargement.
“When the renomination of Várhelyi was announced, I expected more hesitancy from von der Leyen, given his track record,” said Katalin Cseh, a Hungarian lawmaker and former Renew MEP, which she said had caused “embarrassment and humiliation for the entire Commission.”
“I was a bit surprised that during his nomination process, these serious ethical concerns did not come up more,” Cseh added.
Max Griera Andreu, Antoaneta Roussi and Gerardo Fortuna contributed to this story.
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