Did the Orbán cabinet want to bug German MEP with Israeli spy software?

At least that is what the German green MEP, Daniel Freund, told Politico about a spyware attack targeting his phone. “I’m not saying it was Hungary, but out of the possibilities, this is what seems most likely,” Freund said. The software attacking his phone was an Israeli spy software.

Freund and the Israeli spy software: what happened exactly?

According to politico.eu, the German MEP received an email from a Kyiv student inviting him to a university seminar about Ukraine’s EU accession. She invited Freund to write a short message and shared a link containing the spyware. Following a warning from the European Parliament, the MEP did not click on the link, so his phone remained clean.

Candiru, an Israeli company, made the software, which the US government blacklisted in 2021.

Nobody knows who was behind the attack, but Freund suspects Hungary and its government. He has been a harsh critic of PM Orbán for years and pushed to suspend Hungary’s presidency of the Council of the EU. Politico highlighted that there was no evidence of Hungary’s involvement, and a government spokesperson declined to comment.

We wrote about the Hungarian government’s use of Israeli spy software Pegasus against politicians and journalists in THESE articles.

Read also:

• Bloomberg: Hungary bought from spyware monitoring politicians and journalists
• Could all of Budapest be bugged by Russians?

EU presidency to ‘represent demand for change’, says minister in Tusványos

The results of the recent European parliamentary elections reflect a “demand for change” and the Hungarian EU presidency is to “promote and represent that demand”, EU Affairs Minister János Bóka said at the Balvanyos Summer University in Baile Tusnad (Tusnadfurdo), in Romania, on Wednesday.

Speaking in a panel discussion, Bóka said the EU had given “ill-advised responses” in areas such as competitiveness, cohesion and agricultural policy, or demographic challenges.

“Changes involve political conflicts; we will act responsibly if we act as an honest mediator but do not refrain from those conflicts,” the minister said. He called for a fundamental change in the EU’s approach, which he said should focus on the “value added in integration”. “The success of the EU should be evaluated on that basis … in the past five years the EU failed because acting together did not yield the value added that members could have achieved separately, on their own,” he insisted.