German Green MEP Daniel Freund—one of the most vocal critics of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in the European Parliament—has filed a criminal complaint against Orbán following an alleged attempt to hack his email account using spyware in the run-up to the European Parliament elections, POLITICO Brussels reported.

Freund filed the complaint together with the German NGO Society for Civil Rights against ‘Viktor Orbán and unknown’, requesting that the state prosecutor in the western German city of Krefeld, along with cybercrime authorities, launch an investigation. ‘There are indications that the Hungarian secret service is behind the attack,’ Freund and the NGO said in a joint statement on Wednesday.

According to their account, someone claiming to be a Ukrainian student sent Freund an email containing a suspicious link, which he did not open. The European Parliament stated that the link contained spyware likely developed by the Israeli company Candiru.

‘According to the EU Parliament’s IT experts, the Hungarian government could be behind the eavesdropping on me,’ Freund said in a statement. ‘This comes as no surprise: Orbán despises democracy and the rule of law. If the suspicion is confirmed, it would be an outrageous attack on the European Parliament.’

Freund and the NGO asked prosecutors to open an investigation to clarify ‘the facts of the case’ through measures including witness questioning and an independent forensic analysis.

It remains unclear, however, why Freund and the NGO are so confident that Viktor Orbán’s government is responsible for the alleged attempt. Freund is a well-known Orbán critic and played a key role in freezing EU funds for Hungary under the so-called rule-of-law conditionality mechanism. He also campaigned in 2024 against Hungary’s EU presidency—an effort that ultimately failed, as the presidency later became one of the most successful in recent years. Freund was among the speakers at a pro-LGBTQ opposition protest in Budapest in May 2025, where he claimed that freedom and democracy are under constant threat in Hungary, and that this is due to one man: Viktor Orbán.

The allegations come shortly after media reports last week claiming that Orbán’s government operated a spy network in Brussels from 2015 to 2017. The European Commission has decided to investigate these reports, while liberal-progressive Renew Europe leader Valérie Hayer called on Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to use her ‘power to act’ against European Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi, who was allegedly linked to the network at the time.

Hungarian State Secretary Zoltán Kovács dismissed the reports in a post on X as a ‘smear campaign against Hungary’ orchestrated by ‘foreign intelligence services’. Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó also rejected the allegations.

As Hungarian Conservative wrote in an analysis last week, the investigation—and now Freund’s complaint—should be viewed as part of a coordinated smear campaign organized by the Brussels elite to pressure Viktor Orbán’s government ahead of next year’s parliamentary election in Hungary.

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