Hungary's government, led by Prime Minister Peter Magyar, is ordering the full release of the country's Communist-era secret police "agent files," according to the source report. The files list names of state security informants. Some cooperated willingly, while others passed on information without knowing it.
Magyar and his Tisza party promised during their election campaign to make the files public. The report says Hungarians had called for their release since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. It states that Jozsef Antall, Hungary's first post-Communist prime minister, rejected the idea, as did Viktor Orban's Fidesz party. According to Hungarian news platform Telex, Fidesz voted more than 30 times against plans to open the files after 2010.
A partial release occurred in the 1990s under the "agents law" of 1994, which required certain officials to undergo background checks. Citizens could view their own files from 1997, and permissions were expanded in 2003, but informant names remained secret. The report says the law allowed agencies such as the Ministry of Interior to block file transfers on national security grounds.
From Nov. 4, databases with informant names and key information will be published online. The report says the release covers up to 60,000 of an estimated 150,000 informants. ABTL director Bendeguz Gergo Cseh cautioned that "you can't believe everything the state security agencies and their files claim," noting that many documents are incomplete and some were destroyed. Historian Janos M. Rainer told Telex that the release is more symbolic than useful now. Historian Krisztian Ungvary, speaking to DW, welcomed it as a basis for new research and public debate.
In mid-September, Magyar wrote on Facebook that Fidesz did not support the parliamentary motion to make the files public. The report notes that several figures in Fidesz and Orban's inner circle were formerly members of the Communist party or secret police. One of them, Jozsef Horvath, a former state security employee, later served as research director of Orban's Sovereignty Protection Office.