Czech President would reassess Hungary ties, information sharing due to leaked Szijjártó-Lavrov phone call – updated

Audio leak shows Hungarian foreign minister pledging to block EU sanctions against Russia.

Czech President Petr Pavel on Tuesday told Czech Television that the country should reassess relations with Hungary and the information it shares with Budapest.

In late March, Hungary’s foreign minister Péter Szijjártó denied allegations that he had shared confidential EU information with Russia, calling the reports “fake news” and “lies” and describing them as “Ukrainian propaganda” aimed at influencing the April 12 parliamentary elections.

The claims, first reported by The Washington Post and cited by European outlets, suggested that Szijjártó had regularly briefed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on confidential EU discussions.

The report also alleged that Russia’s foreign intelligence service (SVR) had proposed staging a false flag attempt to assassinate Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to boost his chances in next month’s vote, citing an internal intelligence document reviewed by a European intelligence service.

European authorities called on Hungary to provide clarifications, warning that trust among member states is essential for the bloc’s proper functioning.

Hungarian foreign minister savages Czech president over spying row

Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s Foreign Minister, on Wednesday roundly dismissed criticisms from the Czech president, Petr Pavel, urging him to tread more carefully when commenting on the eavesdropping scandal tied to Ukraine’s interests. Without the fall of communism, Pavel would have ended up as a Czechoslovak spy in Western Europe, the minister declared.

Szijjártó branded it an “enormous scandal” that “a foreign minister in the European Union is bugged, with the intercepted phone calls then leaked just days before parliamentary elections”. “It is crystal clear that this intelligence operation and interference were carried out for Ukraine’s benefit. This is a brazen foreign intelligence intervention in Hungary’s parliamentary election campaign, quite simply unacceptable in 21st-century Europe,” he said.

The minister reserved his sharpest barbs for Mr Pavel’s reaction. “The funniest part is the response from the Czech president, who joined the Czechoslovak Communist Party in 1985, trained at a communist intelligence school, and would have been a communist Czechoslovak spy in Western Europe had there been no regime change,” Szijjártó remarked. “He himself vehemently defended the communist regime and his Soviet friends, so perhaps he should choose his words more cautiously on this matter.”

Hungary’s sovereignty must be defended at all costs, Szijjártó stressed. “The bugging of a foreign minister, with the recordings released days before a parliamentary election, amounts to a flagrant foreign intelligence intervention. We will not stand for it. Hungary and its sovereignty will be protected, and we shall ensure that our country stays out of the war raging next door.”

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