But Szijjártó, who has been foreign minister in Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government since 2014, played down the accusations — and alleged that his phone was being tapped.
He explained that he has regularly coordinated with several foreign ministers from non-EU countries “on sanctions-related matters.”
“Nice work! They proved that I say the same publicly as I do on the phone,” he added about the investigative journalists, saying that it’s been “long” known that foreign intelligence services intercept his phone calls.
“For four years we have been saying that the sanctions policy is a failure, causing more harm to the EU than to Russia,” Szijjártó said, adding that “Hungary will never agree to sanction individuals or companies that are important for our energy security or for achieving peace.”
Hungary’s international spokesperson Zoltán Kóvacs told POLITICO on Monday that the foreign minister’s contacts with Russia’s Lavrov were common diplomatic practice, and that he did not exchange sensitive information.
“He’s not talking about those elements, actually, that do not belong to the Russians; they talk about public policy matters that are with the European Union,” Kovács said. Whether EU leaders “like it or not, he … tries to be the broker between Europe and Russia … to explain why decisions are happening,” he added.
