Olivér Várhelyi denies knowledge of alleged spy ring run from his office

BRUSSELS — Hungarian Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi has said he didn’t know anything about a spy ring that allegedly operated out of Budapest’s embassy to the EU while he was in charge.

When quizzed on the scandal by EU lawmakers on Monday, Várhelyi said he hadn’t been approached by intelligence services to pass on secret information. “Have I been approached by the Hungarian or any other services? No, I have not,” he told MEPs in a European Parliament committee meeting.

A joint investigation by Hungarian outlet Direkt36, Germany’s Der Spiegel, Belgian daily De Tijd and others reported in October that Hungarian intelligence officials disguised as diplomats had tried to infiltrate EU institutions and recruit spies between 2012 and 2018.

At the time the reports surfaced, Várhelyi told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that he was “not aware” of the alleged Hungarian efforts, a denial he repeated on Monday.

“I had no knowledge of this claim which was made in the press,” he told MEPs in response to a question from Greens lawmaker Daniel Freund.

Freund had asked the commissioner if he had known of any of the activities supposedly run out of the Hungarian permanent representation to the EU, which he worked at from 2011 and ran from 2015.

Hungarian officials working in the EU institutions at the time described the network to POLITICO as an open secret in the Belgian capital.

Following the media reports, Hungarian opposition leader Péter Magyar — who also worked at the Hungarian permanent representation under Várhelyi — accused him of withholding 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.

The Commission last year set up an internal group to look into the claims that Hungarian officials had spied on the EU institutions. Commission spokesperson Balazs Ujvari told reporters on Monday that its work is “ongoing.”

Gerardo Fortuna contributed to this report.