{"id":520601,"date":"2025-10-22T21:51:28","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T21:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/520601\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T21:51:28","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T21:51:28","slug":"brussels-to-question-orbans-government-over-eu-spying-allegations-anti-fraud-commissioner-says-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/520601\/","title":{"rendered":"Brussels to question Orb\u00e1n\u2019s government over EU spying allegations, anti-fraud commissioner says \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cEven though the investigations have not yet been fully completed, I can assure you that the Commission will raise its concerns with the Hungarian government at all levels,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>But he stopped short of sharing details of the Commission\u2019s broader investigation, saying confidentiality is needed to \u201censure the integrity of the investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Some lawmakers had argued in the plenary\u2019s debate on the scandal that the Commission should suspend Hungary&#8217;s commissioner, Oliver V\u00e1rhelyi, who has the health portfolio.<\/p>\n<p>V\u00e1rhelyi has drawn scrutiny because he was Hungary\u2019s ambassador to the EU for part of the time the spy network was alleged to have operated from the embassy.<\/p>\n<p>There is no suggestion that V\u00e1rhelyi was involved in any alleged espionage, and he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/viktor-orban-rival-peter-magyar-accuses-oliver-varhelyi-hungarian-spy-affair\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">has told<\/a> Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that he was \u201cnot aware\u201d of supposed efforts by Orb\u00e1n\u2019s government to recruit spies in Brussels, according to a Commission spokesperson.<\/p>\n<p>But Sophie Wilm\u00e8s, an MEP from the centrist Renew group, said the EU executive should have suspended the commissioner \u201cat least [while] waiting to shed some light on the matter.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cEven though the investigations have not yet been fully completed, I can assure you that the Commission will&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187,2190,2818],"class_list":{"0":"post-520601","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-european","11":"tag-hungary","12":"tag-intelligence-services"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115420036057692737","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}