Hungary betrayed EU by Szijjártó promising assistance to Lavrov, French Foreign Minister says

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot described Hungary’s discussions with Russian officials on sanctions as a betrayal of solidarity among EU member states during an interview on France Inter radio, Politico reported. In late March, a consortium of investigative journalism outlets released a recording of a phone conversation between Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov. According to the recording, the Hungarian Foreign Minister promised his Russian counterpart assistance on the issue of sanctions.

“This is a betrayal of the fundamental solidarity among European Union countries",

the French daily, Le Figaro quoted Barrot as saying. When asked whether he had refrained from sharing information at meetings of European foreign ministers due to the leaked recordings, Barrot said the recordings had indeed cast doubt on the integrity of their negotiations. The French Foreign Minister added that if the EU wants to remain strong in a world where new empires are rising, they must stand united.

The investigative article published on March 31 reported that the Hungarian Foreign Minister had, on several occasions in recent years, acted in the Kremlin’s interests at European Union meetings and consultations, and had made efforts to have sanctioned Russian individuals and organizations removed from the EU sanctions list. After the article was published, Szijjártó reacted on Facebook:“It has been known for some time that foreign intelligence services – with the active cooperation of Hungarian journalists – have been listening in on my phone calls. Today, the wiretappers have made another huge ‘discovery’: they’ve proven that I say the same things in public as I do on the phone…Great job!”

On April 8, the same consortium of investigative media outlets released additional details of telephone conversations between Péter Szijjártó and the Russian Foreign Minister. Among other things, the recordings revealed that Szijjártó offered to send EU documents to his Russian counterpart via the Hungarian Embassy in Moscow, and a discussion they had ahead of Viktor Orbán’s visit to Moscow in July 2024 was also revealed. According to the article, the Hungarian government systematically used the issue of the rights of the Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia as a weapon to obstruct and slow down Ukraine’s EU accession negotiations. Szijjártó described the release of the audio recordings as an “unusually harsh and blatant secret service intervention.”

Paula Pinho, the spokesperson for the European Commission said that the latest recordings highlight the alarming possibility that “the government of a member state is cooperating with Russia,” and is thereby actively working against the security and interests of the EU and its citizens. She added that this is extremely concerning and that the government of the member state must urgently clarify the situation.