A European Commission investigation has confirmed that Hungarian intelligence officers operated from the country’s Permanent Representation to the EU and targeted Commission officials, according to an internal report obtained by POLITICO Brussels. The disclosure provides the first official confirmation of an operation previously established only through investigative reporting.
The document, dated April 2026, summarizes an inquiry led by Piotr Serafin, the commissioner responsible for anti-fraud and public administration. It found that Hungarian intelligence services placed several officers at the Brussels mission between 2013 and 2016 and that their activities became increasingly conspicuous after 2015.
Serafin’s report said the officers’ work was ‘initially discreet’ but became ‘much more overt from 2015 onwards’. Their presence eventually became known among Hungarian officials working in the EU institutions, apparently weakening the operation. The Commission believes the activities ended in 2016.
The officers allegedly used their diplomatic postings for activities that went ‘beyond the tasks usually associated with diplomats’. They approached Commission officials of Hungarian nationality and sought detailed information about internal EU work on subjects of particular interest to Viktor Orbán’s government.
‘Serafin’s inquiry nevertheless stopped short of assigning responsibility to political or diplomatic superiors’
That conclusion is the principal new element in POLITICO’s report. The allegations were first published in October 2025 by a consortium including Hungarian investigative outlet Direkt36, Belgium’s De Tijd, and Germany’s Der Spiegel. Until now, however, Brussels had treated the existence of the network as an allegation rather than an officially confirmed finding.
When the Commission closed its investigation in May, it emphasized that no serious security breach had been identified and that there was no evidence any Commission employee had been successfully recruited. It did not publicly disclose that its investigators had substantiated the existence of the Hungarian intelligence operation itself.
Serafin’s inquiry nevertheless stopped short of assigning responsibility to political or diplomatic superiors. The document said the Commission’s limited investigative powers made it ‘not possible to attribute individual responsibility’ beyond the intelligence officers directly involved.
The findings revive scrutiny of Olivér Várhelyi, who became Hungary’s ambassador to the EU in 2015, when the operation reportedly intensified, and headed the Permanent Representation until 2019. He now serves as the European Commissioner for Health and Animal Welfare.
Várhelyi told Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last year that he was unaware of the alleged activities. Appearing before MEPs in January, he also denied that either Hungarian or foreign intelligence services had approached him. The Commission found no evidence establishing his personal involvement, and Várhelyi did not respond to POLITICO’s latest request for comment.
Former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his government firmly rejected the original allegations in 2025. Then-foreign minister Péter Szijjártó said he had no knowledge of such an operation, while international spokesman Zoltán Kovács portrayed the reporting as a foreign intelligence-backed smear campaign.
Former minister János Lázár, who supervised the Information Office during much of the relevant period, took a more defiant line, saying he would have ‘rewarded rather than reprimanded’ intelligence officers if they had acted to discover how Brussels intended to harm Hungary.
‘Former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his government firmly rejected the original allegations in 2025’
The allegations surrounding the Hungarian spy ring have become one of several controversial issues during Hungary’s 2026 election campaign. Prime Minister Péter Magyar has challenged Várhelyi’s account, saying the former ambassador ‘had not revealed the whole truth’.
Magyar, who served at Hungary’s Permanent Representation in Brussels between 2011 and 2015, said the deployment of intelligence personnel was widely known there and alleged that the Hungarian intelligence services had also monitored and wiretapped him.
The Commission continues to maintain that its investigation uncovered no serious compromise of institutional security.
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