Is Hungary leaking EU secrets? A crisis of trust in Brussels

Good morning, it's Monday March 23, and this is the Brussels Playbook podcast. The vibe today is declassified as a trust crisis in boils the EU after the Prime Minister of Poland accused Hungary of leaking sensitive information to Moscow. Also on the pod, Europe is trying to figure out how to manage Donald Trump's ego while pressure is building over the strait of hall mues. And finally, Europe has been busy voting this weekend. We take you through some of the main results. I'm Zojosha Ftolowicz and with me today is our chief foreign affairs correspondent Nick Vinikor. Hey, Nick. What did you have for dinner last night? Wow, that was years ago. You really stumped me there. No recollection. I had a Portuguese tart, so I'm glad that I remember that and you remember nothing. Nick, let's talk about something that's really kind of heated up over the course of the weekend. The Washington Post published a pretty explosive story alleging that the Russians and the Hungarians were essentially colluding to prop up Viktor Orban's prime ministerial ambitions. And as part of that investigation, there was also a hint that maybe the Hungarians had been briefing the Russians about secret talks within the EU. It's the prettiest astonishing stuff. Yeah, I mean, it's an explosive claim. This is something that we've definitely heard before, sort of in background talks that well, we're being careful about what we say in front of Hungarian representatives. But here you have it black and white, black on white with the foreign minister alleged to have given live updates to the Russian foreign minister during EU summits. That certainly sort of raises the egregiousness of what we're talking about here, and it's forcing some people to react. Yeah, and it's not just like an anonymous official that's saying this in this Washington Post article, it's actually the Polish prime minister Donald Tusk went on to X last night and basically said, yeah, this is something that we have kind of known has been happening. We've done some reporting last night and into this morning. And you've spoken to some people who've said, yeah, this is absolutely something that we have known might be occurring. Yeah, so we've had a kind of different levels of reactions. We have some people saying, well, we kind of know this is the case. But you have people saying, look, this is really what shows what's wrong with the EU format these days. And just as a reminder to the listeners, there's no law governing confidentiality during these meetings. Some of the meetings are in restricted formats, which means no aids, others are with no phones. But those are kind of attempts to limit leaks. There's essentially no law punishing leaders for leaking things. Which is kind of good news for you and me because we go around asking everyone what they said in there and we start reporting stuff out and we've had some pretty explosive stories too. So what's the problem with all of this submight say, if the journalists are getting leaks, why shouldn't the Russians? Yeah, so the problem is this was from one national government officially said, this is the reason why the real sensitive diplomacy is now increasingly happening outside the EU. And this person rattled off a number of different formats, E3, E4, E7, joint expeditionary fours, VIMAR formats. And said, that's where the real sensitive diplomacy, anything to do with security with Ukraine negotiations, it's happening there because they're not having these discussions in front of what they called less loyal member states. This has been happening repeatedly because you and I were reporting on the European Council Summit last week where EU leaders gathered with Viktor Oban in the room, Viktor acting like a spoiler, essentially stopping the rest of the EU from issuing this 90 billion Euro loan to Ukraine. I mean, this isn't just this that we're talking about here. There has been a general suspicion about the fact that Hungary may be acting on behalf of the Kremlin on some of these things that they are kind of the fox in the henhole. Wait, is that how you say it? The henhole may be a pub in Melbourne, but I think he said the henhouse. Well, the fox maybe in the henhouses, what people are saying about Viktor Oban, but this is kind of this really underscores the idea that that EU level decision making is in a lot of trouble. So it is a bit of a problematic precedent that's being set. Absolutely. It's undermined by the veto, which can be wielded in a way that is not with goodwill as they're accusing Orbán of doing. And it's also being undermined by the security aspect. We're saying we can't have serious sensitive discussions. And one of the things that came up in these chats just now, people reacting to this article saying, well, maybe we should look at raising the level of confidentiality of some of these meetings, of having certain documents, certain conversations classed as confidential and say there's going to be repercussions for people who go and speak to the press. And as I'm saying, as I'm saying it, I'm hating it, but that's one of the themes that's come out. Yeah, but you know, over the weekend, Donald Trump publicly endorsed Orbán again, calling him a fantastic guy, wishing him a big win, really full-throated support. And he posted a video for CPAC Hungary. That's that big conservative political action conference, the gathering of right-wing politicians that's happening today, right, Nick? That's right. Yeah, it's become a big meeting point for Europe's nationalist rate. And you have a real who's who of kind of far-rate or hard-rate figures, Marine Le Pen, Mateo Salvini, Herit Filters, all expected in Budapest. Yeah, and not only that, but we've got Carol Nafrotsky, who's the Polish president, who is also planning to be in Budapest today. And it's kind of interesting that he's doing that because obviously on the one hand, his party, law and justice, they are friendly with Orbán, you know, they were old buds going way back. But the flip side of it is that with these revelations that have come out about the Hungarians colluding potentially with the Russians, you know, that is not good news for Nafrotsky. He is not a friend of the Kremlin. And even though he disagrees with the Prime Minister with Donald Trump's kind of lot of topics, he definitely agrees with him on the need to ensure that the Russians don't actually get to complete their full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But he sort of said, yeah, look, I'm still going. Nothing to see here. Yeah, we should state that Peter Syszarzo, the Hungarian Foreign Minister, has called this fake news and denied it for whatever that's worth. Yeah, I think another aspect of this is how much it exposes the split within the Polish government. You have the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister really going guns blazing on social media against Orbán saying, we've known this, we've taken it into account and having the President going the complete other way, ignoring this revelation, and that just shows you what's going on in Warsaw. Nick, our second story today, it's one that you've been working on. It's about basically how European leaders are trying to respond to Donald Trump's pressure over getting involved in this war in Iran, and particularly helping him reopen the straight up for moves. Let's start briefly with going back to last week at the European Council Summit and also over this weekend. Really, this is what was dominant over the course of the last few days. The war in Iran and the energy crisis that's ensued have kind of completely hijacked that summit and became the number one issue for the leaders to discuss there. Europe is obviously deeply affected by the high energy prices and the discussion is now all about sort of what can bring them down. But behind the scenes, I would say the theme alongside all of that was Trump and how to deal with how to manage Trump. He's asking the European leaders to intervene. They rejected him earlier in the week, but the story is about the sort of quiet diplomacy to manage Donald Trump and sort of take the sting out of that rejection for him. Yeah, and I think some of the reporting that I've done over the last few days has looked at the approach that European leaders have towards Trump. The general takeaway that I have is basically they just don't want to engage with him at all. As much as possible, they don't want to antagonize him. There are some exceptions to this rule, like Pedro Sanchez, the Spanish Prime Minister. But for the most part, the European politicians, they're not that interested in picking a fight with Trump because they know that it doesn't end well. Yeah, and I think that's also because there's still so much to lose for Europe, right? There's the support for Ukraine. The US continues to provide crucial support, logistics, intelligence sharing for Ukraine, and Europe sort of essentially needs them on side there. Yeah, and we had this story that our colleagues reported out of the US and out of Europe as well, saying that basically there had been an offer made by Moscow to the US. If the US stopped sharing intelligence sharing stuff with Ukraine, that Russia would stop sharing with Iran. And the US administration seems to have rebuffed that offer and said no, but nonetheless, I mean, it was a real worry for EU politicians, even the fact that such an approach had been made. Absolutely. It kind of speaks to the real fear here, which is that there's a trade-off between Iran and Ukraine and that the United States only has enough bandwidth for one conflict and can't be interested in the other. So the line that we're kind of reporting out here is all the efforts that the Europeans are making to keep Donald Trump on side to show him that we're supporting your aims in horror moves. And what's interesting in the stories, you show real two tracks of diplomacy, the public diplomacy, which is quite critical in some cases, and also saying we're not going to get drawn into the war. But then there's what they're doing behind the scenes, which is actually pledging support for clearing the straight-up horror moves and taking certain diplomatic initiatives at the United Nations Security Council to try to build a coalition, to underpin a move to clear the straights. And we sort of looked at it and broke it down. Who is leading this push? And of course it's Mark Rozza. We know he's the big kind of Trump booster in Europe. He's been praising the war aims. But then there's Macron who's been doing the work behind the scenes, had two calls with President Trump last week. He's pledged a naval detachment into Hormuz as soon as the firing stops. And this is their way of trying to keep these kind of this strained relationship together. And this is something last week at that European Council summit, one of the things that the EU politicians were saying when they were talking about what we need to do as Europe in order to kind of contribute to winding this stuff down, there was a talk about we need to de-escalate. And that de-escalation, the idea was not so much that you talked to Donald Trump or Israel to de-escalate, but let's de-escalate by talking to Iran. And you've got some reporting to show that that is happening now, that there is some conversation between the EU and Iran. Yeah, so over the weekend, Kayakalis, the used top diplomat, did speak directly to Iran's foreign minister, Shalcewad talks with Qatar, a number of Gulf states. And I think the idea there is Europe doing its best via diplomacy to de-escalate this. And that's one track. And then there's also this UN Security Council track, which I mentioned. I understand that a resolution has been submitted to the Security Council calling for the freeing up of the straight-of-hormuz. These are various initiatives that stop short of sending ships into the danger zone in the straight-of-hormuz. [MUSIC PLAYING] Nick, let's move on to our third topic of the day, which is a absolutely bumper crop of elections that have been happening around Europe over the course of the weekend. Let's start with the French local elections, which we saw on Sunday. And the kind of big headline news there is that the Socialist Party candidate, Emmanuel Gregois, is going to be looking pretty much like he's going to be the mayor of Paris. Absolutely. This is kind of a return to form for my hometown in a way. In Paris, so reports of him getting on a bicycle and riding to the city hall. This is really kind of Paris, as I remember it, always slightly to the left, and now they're back in power. The other big kind of headline winner, Nick, is Edward Philippe. He has won reelection as mayor of La Javre. And that's going to keep his presidential dreams alive. Absolutely. Eduardo Filippe has been one of the potential successors to Emmanuel Macron for years now. He was his prime minister, went off and formed his own center right sort of splinter party. And this certainly re-awakens, reignite some of the heat that buzz around his presidential campaign. And let's turn to the far right, because that's been the really big question of this election. How would the National Rally do in the ballot? So it's got some mixed results in Marseille, which is France's second biggest city, the National Rally candidate lost out to the incumbent mayor from the center left. In southern France, National Rally failed to take control of Touloune and Nîm, but not so in Nice. Yeah. And just to put a little color, I don't think they ever would have won in Marseille, which is really a very, very diverse city. And Touloune and Nîm, those are more kind of right leaning. But Nîm has been a bastion of the center right, held on for a long time. And if they win in Nice, that would definitely be a major prize for the National Rally. Yeah. But it wasn't just in France where there were elections. There was also a vote in the Western German state of Reinland to palletinate. And there, the chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservatives ended up very narrowly looking like they've won. That's a much needed victory for Merz. He needs all the help he can get. He may have seen off the challenge in Reinland to palletinate, but the AFD has done very well also. And they've almost doubled their vote share. All right, Nick. That's just about it for us today. But we've got a special birthday today for someone who's turning the big 70. It's Jose Manuel Barroso. Hey, remember him? He was twice the president of the European Commission before that he was the Portuguese prime minister. And now, guess what he's doing. Good work. If you can get it, he's chair of Golden Sacks International Advisors. Well, that is not too shabby, I would say, for old Barroso. He was back in Brussels just last week. He took part in a panel at the EPP's 50th Anniversary event. So I hope they got him a cake. Yeah, and unlike some other former leaders, he doesn't really comment on EU politics. He's keeping all the good stuff for Golden Sacks. Well, maybe there'll be a Barroso report on competitiveness around the corner. We should be so lucky. Well, he's not an Italian prime minister, it's probably not going to happen. It's true, there is that rule. Folks, that's it from us today. Sign up for the podcast. Leave us a review. Make sure you send us a note on WhatsApp. Our number is in the show notes. Thanks very much for joining us today, Nick. Thank you for coming in. Thanks for having me. Hey, this is Emily Sholtice. I'm the senior editorial director of Politico's Live Journalism Events. On Tuesday here in Brussels, we're diving into Europe's efforts to compete on the global stage, on everything from energy policy, to simplification, to defense and security. Register to join us in person for the competitive Europe Summit, or follow the discussions live on politico.eu.