According to a conglomerate of progressive EU publications, Hungary reportedly ran a super-duper-secret-special spy ring in Brussels. This espionage network engaged in its dastardly duties for years, covertly recruiting Hungarians working in the European Commission to betray their good, honest European comrades.
But they underestimated the power of left-wing journalists! Muckrakers from various rags, including Der Spiegel, De Tijd, and Direkt36, discovered through anonymous interviews that the spies had crawled through the Commission in a desperate attempt to sniff out dirt on its employees.
But then, one day, a member of the spy ring, mysteriously called V, tried to give an ultra-covert super-duper-secret spy contract to one Hungarian employee of the Commission.
But this employee was not going to be led astray by such evil temptations. No, he went and told the only people you can really trust in the modern world: leftist journalists!
Europe was saved!
Man, where do I even begin with this car crash of a story?
First off, this entire ‘exposé’ is based exclusively on anonymous sources. Even the various articles published by these outlets admit that their understanding of what happened was only ‘pieced together’. In human speak, that means they have very little idea of the real facts, and are just running off the gossip of a bunch of insiders.
‘This entire “exposé” is based exclusively on anonymous sources’
But more importantly, this story, on the face of it, is just really, really dumb.
One major reason this story is suspect is because of how pointless such a spy ring would be. Getting gossip, including incredibly sensitive info on the internal workings of the Commission and other bodies, is extremely easy. Each week, my messaging apps are drowning in document leaks and the latest stories of who is sleeping with whom and which EP aide is buying drugs off the guy in Strasbourg.
I am not a special case here. Brussels leaks like a sieve. Getting the info you want is never difficult. Only time-consuming. You definitely would not need a dedicated ring of spies to hunt it down for you.
Also, if Hungary really wanted to recruit Hungarian nationals as spies, then why the heck would you do so in Brussels? It would be safer, easier and more effective to approach them only when they are in Hungary! What would be even easier still is if you just pushed some of your pro spies that are already on the books to take jobs in the Commission. I mean, that’s what all the other half-intelligent EU member-states do.
Oh. You didn’t know that? Well, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
But most laughable is this notion of the super-secret-spy-contract. According to these news rags, this V character approached our heroic Eurocrat with a piece of paper that would make him an official member of Viktor Orbán’s extra-special-ultra-evil-spy squad.
I mean, do I really have to spell out why this is dumb and almost certainly didn’t happen?
If you are trying to recruit a spy.
You do not.
Under any circumstances.
Give them a piece of paper telling them they could be a spy.
Especially not some kind of employment contract.
And by all admission, the person involved in this story was supposedly already handing over all the juicy info our resident international magyar of mystery wanted anyway! Why then turn around and try to give him money?
Of course, this idiocy has not dissuaded the usual suspects. Politico and all the other Brussels-bubble outlets are now trying to use this joke of a story to go after Hungarian EU Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi. Seemingly not happy that the veteran politician has suffered enough, being demoted from Enlargement to Health and Animal Welfare after the last European elections, they are now trying to use this farce as an excuse to purge him entirely.
Spare the poor guy a thought. Dude deserves a cushy retirement on Lake Balaton after living in Brussels for that long.
Then again, not everyone has gotten the memo, with this whole fiasco resulting in some Europhile friendly fire. The literally-whos in EUObserver, for instance, have also suggested that von der Leyen’s pet, Hungarian Péter Magyar, may also bear responsibility for the evil spy ring, having reportedly been part of the country’s operations in Hungary at the time.
Yes. For once, we at Slop Check have to defend the man. What has the world come to?
Ultimately, this story gets our worst-ever score. One out of five slop buckets. It is not even a fun story. It’s just dumb.
If nothing else, we all know that the best way to spy in Brussels is to throw literal sacks of cash at your nearest S&D group MEP anyway.
Slop Rating: 1/5
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