Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said he speaks to his counterparts in Russia, Serbia, Israel, the United States and Turkey both before and after EU meetings on foreign affairs. “I speak not only with the Russian foreign minister, but also with the U.S., the Turkish, the Israeli, the Serbian ones, and our other partners before and after the meetings of the Council of the European Union,” Szijjártó said at a campaign rally Monday evening. “The situation is that many decisions are being made in the European Union that influence the relations and cooperation of Hungary with other countries outside the EU,” he said, adding: “That’s what foreign policy is about. Perhaps I’m saying something rough, but diplomacy is about us talking to leaders of other countries.” A report at the weekend in the Washington Post claimed Budapest maintained close contacts with the Kremlin throughout the war in Ukraine and that Szijjártó used breaks during EU meetings to update his Russian counterpart.  Szijjártó on Sunday accused Donald Tusk of “spreading lies and fake news” when the Polish prime minister wrote on X that the revelations about calls with Russia were not a surprise. “We’ve had our suspicions about that for a long time,” Tusk said. Hungary’s Europe Minister János Bóka also denied the report, telling POLITICO: “It is fake news that is now being spread as a desperate reaction to [Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s] Fidesz gaining momentum in the election campaign.” The reports are “greatly concerning” as trust between member countries and the bloc’s institutions is fundamental to the EU’s functioning, Commission foreign affairs spokesperson Anitta Hipper said Monday. The Commission is waiting for “clarifications” from the Hungarian government, she added.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen hailed Hungary’s Viktor Orbán for blocking a €90 billion EU loan for Ukraine. “I’d prefer it if we didn’t have to wait for other countries to take good decisions,” Le Pen told reporters on a trip to Budapest for a meeting of the Patriots for Europe group, of which her National Rally and Orbán’s Fidesz are members. Le Pen argued that France could no longer afford to support Ukraine’s war effort due to its high deficit and debt levels. “France is ruined, our public finances don’t allow us today to make loans we know won’t be reimbursed,” she said. “France has to become reasonable … and keep the money for French citizens.” Also in Hungary for the meeting are Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders and Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini. Hungary goes to the polls on April 12, and the National Rally leader lent Orbán her firm backing on Monday on X, saying she was “very honored” to support him. On Saturday, Hungary held a European edition of the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC), which included a video message from U.S. President Donald Trump, who reiterated his “complete and total” backing for Orbán. Le Pen was not present at the CPAC gathering and said she wanted France to stay at a “distance” from the world’s great powers. “It doesn’t mean we don’t respect them, it just means we defend our interests and they defend theirs,” she said, adding that Trump’s tariff war against Europe proved why she needed to take this stance.

BRUSSELS — The European Commission wants Budapest to explain explosive allegations that the Hungarian foreign minister shared information from confidential talks with other EU member countries with Moscow. The reports are “greatly concerning” as trust between member countries and the bloc’s institutions is fundamental to the EU’s functioning, Commission foreign affairs spokesperson Anitta Hipper said Monday. The Commission is waiting for “clarifications” from the Hungarian government, she added. A report over the weekend by the Washington Post claimed Budapest maintained close contacts with the Kremlin throughout the war in Ukraine and that Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó even used breaks during meetings with other EU countries to update his Russian counterpart.  Szijjártó has denied the report. Hungary’s Europe Minister János Bóka told POLITICO: “It is fake news that is now being spread as a desperate reaction to [Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s] Fidesz gaining momentum in the election campaign. But the Hungarian people won’t be deceived.” Hungarians head to the polls for a crunch election on April 12. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has not yet commented on the claims. Asked whether von der Leyen was aware, Commission’s Deputy Chief Spokesperson Arianna Podestà said: “The president is in Australia, so I’m not sure she’s seen reports yet.” Von der Leyen is visiting Australia to shore up a long-awaited trade deal. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the allegations “shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.”  “We’ve had our suspicions about that for a long time,” he wrote on X on Sunday. “That’s one reason why I take the floor only when strictly necessary and say just as much as necessary.”  Former Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, who frequently attended Council meetings where Szijjártó was present, told POLITICO he was warned as early as 2024 that the Hungarian side could be passing on information to the Kremlin.  Suspicion of leaks has driven the proliferation of other talking formats that exclude Budapest, five European officials and diplomats told POLITICO. “This has been a given for a while,” said a sixth official, who, like the others, was afforded anonymity to discuss the sensitive claims.   Nicholas Vinocur, Gabriel Gavin and Gerardo Fortuna contributed to this story.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Zoya Sheftalovich and Nick Vinocur unpack Donald Tusk’s accusation that Hungary may have leaked sensitive European Council discussions to Moscow — and what that means for trust, decision-making and Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán’s position in Brussels. Plus: Europe’s balancing act as Donald Trump turns up the pressure over Iran — and a breakdown of the weekend’s voting in France and Germany. Questions? Comments? Send them to our WhatsApp: +32 491 05 06 29. 

The Trump administration is doubling down on its endorsement of Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán in next month’s Hungarian elections, even as Orbán’s deal-blocking in Brussels has been labeled “unacceptable” by EU peers. U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday reiterated his “complete and total endorsement” of Orbán in the Hungarian elections. And U.S. Vice President JD Vance is reportedly due to fly to Budapest in April in support of the prime minister. The EU’s longest-serving leader, facing an election in less than a month that he is forecast to lose, has long been a thorn in the side of Brussels. In the latest stand-off against his European counterparts, Orbán held hostage a €90 billion loan to Ukraine this week over an oil dispute. “The prime minister has been a strong leader whose shown the entire world what’s possible when you defend your borders, your culture, your heritage, your sovereignty and your values,” Trump said in a video address to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) taking place in Hungary on Saturday. Trump praised Hungary’s “strong borders” and said the country will continue to “work very hard on immigration,” and said Europe has to “work very hard” to solve “a lot of problems” around immigration. The American president said that Hungary and the U.S. are “showing the way toward a revitalized West,” and would also work “hard together on energy.” Vance is planning an April trip to Budapest just ahead of the Hungarian elections in a show of support for Orbán, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto confirmed in a podcast on Friday. Reuters first reported on Vance’s planned trip to Budapest.

Hungarian opposition leader Péter Magyar is recruiting top business leaders to form his Cabinet if he wins next month’s election — calculating they will bring the skills needed to break Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s ubiquitous grip on state institutions. Magyar is running about 10 percentage points ahead of Orbán in polls before the April 12 vote, but a victory in the election would not give him an immediate free hand to rule. Magyar would still face a battle to dismantle Orbán’s influence across the judiciary, media and public companies — some of it exercised through complex webs of Orbán-linked shareholdings. Magyar’s Tisza party is promising a “true regime change” from what it sees as the crony networks through which Orbán, an anti-EU leader close to the Kremlin, controls much of public life in the country of 9.5 million people. Zoltán Tarr, the No. 2 in Tisza, said the priority was to find “good managers” who could implement that change. He explained that another advantage of recruiting from corporate boardrooms — rather than hiring political veterans — was that the new ministers would not be tainted by previous government experience that would compromise their ability to slash back Orbán’s role in the state. “We mostly go to the business world to find names because we have certain rules. We cannot deal with people with certain government ‘baggage.’ And that really limits the possibilities for us,” he told POLITICO in an interview. Tarr added that trying to regain access to Hungary’s currently frozen EU funds would also require skills familiar to executives. “There will be a pragmatic relation with Ursula von der Leyen and Brussels … it’s like business, but mutually beneficial, for Hungary and the EU, and a keeping-your-word kind of business,” he said. So far, only five names for a potential Cabinet have been confirmed, apart from leader Magyar, who would be prime minister. Anita Orbán, who until January was public affairs director for Vodafone group and board chair of Czech chemical giant Draslovka, has been tapped to be the country’s new foreign minister, having been a high-level civil servant in the ministry between 2010 and 2015. To lead the energy portfolio Tisza has picked Shell’s Global Executive Vice President István Kapitány, while for fiscal policy and budget it has picked András Kármán, a top manager at Erste, a Central and Eastern European banking group. The proposed future minister for agriculture, Szabolcs Bóna, is a top entrepreneur in the cattle industry. From outside the realm of big business, the planned minister of health, Zsolt Hegedus, is an orthopedic surgeon. This strategy has served Tisza well in the past. For its list of candidates for the 2024 European elections, the party used public online forms to recruit apolitical figures such as doctors, lawyers, professors and Hungarians with Brussels experience, while avoiding career politicians associated with Orbán’s Fidesz party. COMPLEX STRUCTURES A classic example of the complexity of Orbán’s hold on state entities is MOL, Hungary’s main energy company. It is 10 percent owned by the Mathias Corvinus Collegium Foundation (MCC) — a Fidesz-aligned academic institution controlled by Orbán’s political director, Balázs Orbán. In 2022, the MCC founded a think tank in Brussels to lobby EU institutions. A classic example of the complexity of Viktor Orbán’s hold on state entities is MOL, Hungary’s main energy company. | Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images Tarr said Tisza has “a special task force” that has drawn up “a plan” on how to tackle MOL. “The whole leadership structure and ownership structure is something which needs to be dealt with,” he said. “There are certain things which will be easier to work around, there will be other things which won’t be that easy to work with, which is MCC for example,” Tarr continued. While the ownership structure will be difficult to change without a two-thirds majority, the company’s strategy will be easier to alter, Tarr said. Tisza plans to halt MOL’s imports of Russian oil by 2035. NO SUPERMAJORITY The biggest problem for Tisza, however, is that many of the changes it is most determined to implement in Hungary will be constitutionally impossible without a two-thirds supermajority, which looks like a remote prospect. Miklós Ligeti, legal director at Transparency International Hungary, said a supermajority would be required “to redesign the basics of how Hungary is working.” The judiciary, the constitutional court, the general prosecutor, the media board and the ombudsman are among the key institutions whose heads can only be appointed with the support of two-thirds of MPs in the Hungarian parliament. These bodies “at the moment are captured [by Orbán’s allies] and may exhibit a potential to block a non-Fidesz government,” Ligeti said. Tarr admitted that a Tisza government needs to be prepared for both scenarios: a simple majority and a two-thirds majority. “We do have a list of actions, legal actions we would like to do,” Tarr said. “We have one scenario when we have a constitutional majority, we have another scenario when we just have a simple majority … that’s how we prepare.” If it attains a supermajority, Tisza also plans to open a debate on the future of the constitution, which was rewritten by Orbán in 2011, along with subsequent amendments, which critics say have limited the power of the constitutional court, civil liberties and media freedom. “We think it’s not right how [the Constitution is] at the moment, but it is up to a wider dialogue on how it should be,” Tarr said.

NYÍREGYHÁZA, Hungary — Hungarian Prime Viktor Orbán’s political dominance is in question for the first time in 16 years. And in his ruling party’s rural stronghold, younger voters are complaining their elderly relatives are still spellbound by him. Capitalizing on voter frustration over record inflation, economic malaise and endemic corruption, opposition figure Péter Magyar’s campaign has turned his once small center-right Tisza party into a strong anti-Orbán bloc that now holds a national lead in the polls. His promises of building a “modern, European Hungary” are resonating — particularly with the young. But not so much with the older generation who are more resistant to Magyar’s call for change. And that generational divide, younger voters worry, may be a decisive factor in what’s shaping up to be the country’s most consequential election since the end of Communism. The northeastern town of Nyíregyháza, where more than half the population is over 50 years old, is a prime example of this. Long a Fidesz fortress, town residents were hesitant to talk to media or share their last names for fear of online reprisal, particularly the older generation of ruling party supporters. However, some Tisza voters were willing to speak and lament their Orbán-supporting elders — like 27-year-old actor and former Fidesz voter Benji. Asking not to share his family name for fear of trolling on social media, “I’m rooting for Tisza, and I’m hoping there will be some change. The country is heading in the wrong direction, culturally and business-wise,” he told POLITICO. But, he added, in a conversation interrupting his short walk to the theater, “my mom is voting for Orbán because of the war. And her friends as well.” According to Benji, Orbán’s laser-like campaigning about the risks of being sucked into the war in neighboring Ukraine, and his relentless portrayal of Magyar as a Brussels stooge, is working like a spell on the elderly in Nyíregyháza, which is just 70 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. So, too, is his argument that the country needs political stability and that his is the safest pair of hands to navigate these highly dangerous times. Péter Magyar’s promises of building a “modern, European Hungary” are resonating — particularly with the young. | Ferenc Isza/AFP via Getty Images It’s not just in Nyíregyháza that the generational divide spells trouble for Magyar either. Tisza faces a similar problem in other eastern and southern towns, as Fidesz’s traditional heartland has seen a near-constant exodus of the young in search of jobs and opportunities in Budapest or overseas. This youthful flight has only buttressed Fidesz’s regional dominance over the years, and if Tisza is to oust the long-serving Hungarian leader, it will have to win at least some of these towns. And given Orbán’s incumbent advantages, dominance over government-owned airwaves and the largely obliging press controlled by his business allies, Tisza will only have a chance of unseating him if it can erode his party’s traditional vote. Nyíregyháza’s older population is particularly tight-lipped, but Katalin, a 70-year-old semi-retired credit advisor, was happy speak. Once a loyal Fidesz voter, she’s now doing her best to cajole her peers toward Tisza, though she admits whipping up support among her peers in her hometown has been tough, particularly because of the war. “I’m trying to convince everyone that I can to vote for the opposition. But, unfortunately, I have Fidesz voters in my circle. I can’t believe they’re not seeing what this filth is doing,” she said. Dotted around the town are Fidesz billboards depicting Magyar as Janus-like, with half his face transformed into the EU flag. Others group together portraits of Magyar, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, implying they’re all one and the same. “When I talk to my mom about politics, I feel like she’s brainwashed. I try to speak with her to raise her awareness and to encourage her to question things, so she could see behind what’s in the news. My mom is 64. But she and her friends are going to vote for Fidesz,” Benji similarly complained. Tisza will only have a chance of unseating Viktor Orbán if it can erode his party’s traditional vote. | Attila Kisbenedek/AFP via Getty Images Tibor, an IT worker, is encountering the same with his grandmother. “She’s a big fan of the ruling party. And one of my relatives is working for Fidesz, so they are, of course, voting for Orbán,” he explained. “I have no clue why anyone would vote for Fidesz. I feel like they’re just old and glued to watching the government TV channels. They have tunnel vision.” The last time Hungary held parliamentary elections in 2022, opposition hopes were similarly high, but that’s not how things turned out: Fidesz secured the highest vote share of any party in Hungary since the fall of Communism in 1989. “We won a victory so big that you can see it from the moon, and you can certainly see it from Brussels,” boasted an ebullient Orbán. And in the Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg region, where Nyíregyháza is the county capital, Fidesz crushed the opposition with a 61 percent vote share — 7 percent higher than the party’s national take. Yet, Tisza is sure this time will be different, partly because it’s fielding local star László Gajdos as its main candidate here. Hungarians cast two votes — one for the national party list and another for their preferred candidate in single-member district constituencies. Of the 199 seats in the National Assembly, 106 are filled by winners of the district races, while the remaining 93 seats are distributed among winners of the party lists. And Gajdos, a highly popular director of the Nyíregyháza Zoo, is running on both. Even pro-Fidesz observers like Mráz Ágoston Sámuel, director of the research consultancy Nézőpont Institute, expect Tisza to win more national list seats “because opposition voters are very much concentrated in the cities, especially in Budapest. From the party list, we estimate Fidesz will get about 40 seats,” he told POLITICO. But the real fight will be in the districts, and Fidesz will still win the majority there, he said. Tisza disagrees. Péter Lajos Szakács, one of the party’s candidates in Nyíregyháza, told POLITICO he’s confident the party will win. “In Nyíregyháza, we will win with a landslide. I’m in the second district and Gajdos is in the first. He’ll have a historic win. With me, what I can say is that right now, I’m in a tie with my opponent. But we’re working hard, so we can send him into retirement, and he can then spend time with his grandkids,” he said confidently. But local supporters POLITICO spoke to weren’t quite so convinced the electoral struggle in Nyíregyháza is over. “I wouldn’t dare make any predictions,” cautioned Benji. However, most of them did say they thought the election outcome would be close. And that in itself suggests Fidesz isn’t likely to scale the heights it did in 2022. Dotted around the town are Fidesz billboards depicting Magyar as Janus-like, with half his face transformed into the EU flag. | Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images Ultimately, in the districts outside Budapest, much will depend on whether Fidesz can once again mobilize its supporters and get out the vote. In the past, the party was highly efficient in doing so, but in a video of party workers gathered for “warrior training” in October, Orbán was seen fuming about the state of the party’s databases, complaining they were in bad shape. Even so, according to 76-year-old retail store owner Júlia, soothsaying might be a mistake. Unlike most of her contemporaries, Júlia thinks Hungary desperately needs change: “I don’t want to say who I’m voting for. My main criterion is that my kids and my grandkids get to stay here. And that they can make a living, and I don’t think that will happen unless things change. Life will then get easier here,” she mused. In the meantime, with political tensions running high, her business is being impacted. Gesturing to the empty street in downtown Nyíregyháza, she said: “Everything is so quiet. We can really feel it. People are saving up their money. They’re scared of what the future will bring.”

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Zwischen Kyjiw und Budapest droht der endgültige Bruch. Während Viktor Orbán im Europäischen Rat womöglich kommende Woche die Freigabe von 90 Milliarden Euro an EU-Hilfen blockiert, bezeichnet Wolodymyr Selenskyj ihn ⁠im Exklusiv-Interview mit POLITICO⁠ als „Verbündeten Russlands“. Gordon Repinski berichtet von der aufgeladenen Stimmung im Präsidentenpalast und analysiert gemeinsam mit Rixa Fürsen, wie Selenskyjs „Plan B“ aussieht, um das ungarische Veto zu umgehen. Kanzler Friedrich Merz ist derweil am nördlichen Polarkreis. Begleitet von Verteidigungsminister Boris Pistorius geht es in Norwegen um weit mehr als nur diplomatische Höflichkeit. Zwischen NATO-Übungen und dem Besuch eines Weltraumbahnhofs stehen ein U-Boot-Deal mit Kanada sowie die europäische Unabhängigkeit in der Satellitentechnik auf der Agenda. Hans von der Burchard begleitet den Kanzler auf dieser Reise und ordnet ein, ob Norwegen als wichtigster Energielieferant gerade jetzt eine Lebensversicherung für die deutsche Wirtschaftswende sein könnte. Deutschland gibt Teile der strategischen Ölreserve frei und führt eine tägliche Preis-Obergrenze an den Tankstellen ein. Im 200-Sekunden-Interview erklärt Justiz- und Verbraucherschutzministerin Stefanie Hubig (SPD), was die Preisobergrenze bringen soll und ob deutschen Autofahrern bei anhaltender Krise im Nahen Osten bald doch mit einer echten Preisbremse geholfen wird. Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig. Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. ⁠Jetzt kostenlos abonnieren.⁠ Mehr von Host und POLITICO Executive Editor Gordon Repinski: Instagram: ⁠@gordon.repinski⁠ | X: ⁠@GordonRepinski⁠. POLITICO Deutschland – ein Angebot der Axel Springer Deutschland GmbH Axel-Springer-Straße 65, 10888 Berlin Tel: +49 (30) 2591 0 ⁠information@axelspringer.de⁠ Sitz: Amtsgericht Berlin-Charlottenburg, HRB 196159 B USt-IdNr: DE 214 852 390 Geschäftsführer: Carolin Hulshoff Pol, Mathias Sanchez Luna **(Anzeige) Eine Nachricht von Amazon: Unabhängige Verkaufspartner stehen heute für über 60 % aller bei Amazon verkauften Produkte. Ein Beispiel ist Alphatrail aus Regensburg: Michael und sein Team haben ihre Leidenschaft in ein erfolgreich wachsendes Unternehmen verwandelt. Über Amazon bietet Alphatrail Radsport-Fans in ganz Europa erstklassige Ausrüstung und Zubehör. Sie sind eines von rund 47.000 deutschen kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen bei Amazon. Erfahren Sie mehr darüber auf AboutAmazon.de.**

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is urging Europe to find a way around Hungary. In an interview with POLITICO’s Gordon Repinski, Zelenskyy called on EU leaders to come up with a “Plan B” to secure Ukraine’s long-term funding — and to work around what he described as the “blackmail” of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who is holding up a promised €90 billion EU loan (listen to full interview here). Host Zoya Sheftalovich and policy editor Sarah Wheaton break down the tensions inside the EU and what options Europe may have if Hungary continues to block support for Kyiv, as Orbán has repeatedly complicated EU decisions on Ukraine. Also on the podcast: The EU is moving toward banning AI “nudification” tools after a scandal involving Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot showed how easily AI can generate sexualized deepfakes of real people. Plus: Eurovision politics. Belgian artists and activists are planning an alternative music event during Eurovision week to protest Israel’s participation in the contest. If you have questions for us, or want to share what you think about the show, you can reach us on our WhatsApp at +32 491 05 06 29. **A message from Amazon: Across Europe, businesses are growing with the AWS Cloud to build innovative, scalable products. From Europe’s largest enterprises and government agencies to the continent’s fastest growing startups, learn more about how AWS Cloud is helping businesses across Europe grow at AWS.eu.**

Hungarian opposition leader Péter Magyar is accusing the Kremlin of supporting the election campaign of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán with a new barrage of disinformation videos that are supposed to appear on Thursday. Orbán is the EU leader closest to Russian President Vladimir Putin — and a persistent obstacle to Brussels’ support for Ukraine — but he now faces the toughest fight of his political career in Hungary’s April 12 election, where polls put him about 10 points behind Magyar.   Magyar — a former member of Orbán’s Fidesz party, who understands its playbook — said on Tuesday he’d received information that the attack would take the form of “14 AI-generated smear videos,” and complained that the disinformation campaign had been produced “with the help of Russian intelligence services.” People in Magyar’s Tisza party and analysts in Budapest have long expected the race to get dirty as it enters the final stretch. Magyar’s tactic is to sound the alarm on the alleged impending smear attacks against Tisza before they land, hoping to blunt their impact. That’s the same strategy he adopted in mid-February, when faced with the prospect that his opponents could release a sex tape featuring him. He went public and accused Fidesz of planning to release a tape “recorded with secret service equipment and possibly faked, in which my then-girlfriend and I are seen having intimate intercourse.”   For now, that intervention seems to have worked, and such a video has not yet been released. BLOWING THE WHISTLE On Thursday, just as Magyar arrives to campaign in a constituency on the Danube close to Budapest, his team expects Fidesz to target the local candidate and her family with AI-generated videos which will be promoted via fake accounts. Magyar announced his concerns on social media, and called on Orbán “to immediately halt the planned election fraud and order Russian agents out of Hungary.” “By advancing what’s going to happen, we hope to neutralize it … whenever we had any information, [Magyar] made it public right away,” Zoltan Tarr, Tisza’s No. 2 and a long-time Magyar confidant, told POLITICO. “The system is not 100 percent waterproof or leakproof. And we always get some hints of what will be Fidesz’s next move,” he added. It’s too early to assess whether this strategy of going public will be successful for the sex tape and future smear campaigns, said Péter Krekó, executive director of Political Capital, an independent policy research consultancy. But he added that anticipating Fidesz’s moves had worked “really well” to build Magyar’s “Teflon image” because no scandals had yet “burnt” him. Tisza has also raised the specter of foreign interference, openly accusing Orbán of inviting Russian spies to meddle in the election, following reports by independent media VSquare and journalist Szabolcs Panyi. Fidesz denies the allegations. “The left-wing allegation linked to journalist Szabolcs Panyi, claiming Russian interference in the elections, is false,” the Hungarian government’s international communications office told POLITICO in a statement. “No information supports the presence or activities in Hungary of the specific individuals named by Szabolcs Panyi, or of any other persons allegedly engaged in such activities. Other countries’ intelligence services also have no concrete information regarding this matter.” Fidesz members insist Magyar is financed by Ukraine with the aim of installing a puppet government that will be loyal to Kyiv and Brussels. They accuse Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of interfering in the election by blocking Russian oil imports via the Druzhba pipeline and threatening the life of Orbán. The latter allegation came after the Ukrainian leader insinuated he would refer Orbán to Ukrainian troops for a direct talk “in their own language.” The leading Fidesz lawmaker in the European Parliament, Tamás Deutsch, turned the tables and accused Tisza of spreading false information. “As part of this serious interference, the pro-Ukrainian and pro-Brussels Tisza party is spreading disinformation through sympathetic media outlets in Brussels and Hungary,” he told POLITICO. “Hungary and its government will not accept pressure or interference in its democratic processes and will do their utmost to stand up for the interests of the Hungarian people.” FORCING RESIGNATIONS Because the deadline to register candidates for the April 12 vote has passed, the names on the party lists can’t be changed. For this reason, analysts say, Fidesz may now try to dig up dirt on Tisza candidates in the 106 constituencies to knock them out of the race with no hope of replacement. “There are some people who have had certain issues in their lives in the past. Nothing criminal, but perhaps they had a company that had to be closed down, or they went through a divorce, or something similar. These things then can be used as hooks to try to infiltrate the psyche of the candidate, creating false narratives around them,” said Tisza’s Tarr. The campaign that Magyar alleges will be launched on Thursday targets a candidate for the fifth district in Pest, Orsolya Miskolczi. He has not given further details, but Kontroll, a media platform close to Tisza whose publisher is Magyar’s brother, suggested in an article that Fidesz will try to link Miskolczi to a high-level corruption scandal in the Hungarian National Bank, where her husband worked as a legal advisor. The Financial Times on Wednesday reported the Kremlin had endorsed a plan by a communications agency under western sanctions to support Fidesz in the election, including by targeting controversial Tisza candidates. The objective of such smear campaigns “is to push us as far as possible and break us, or force us to give up,” Tarr said, adding the muckraking also targets family members and takes a psychological toll. “They are singling out some of us in the hope that one might resign,” he added.