I was a spy for communist Hungary, says prime minister

The Hungarian Prime Minister, Peter Medgyessy, was forced to admit yesterday that he worked for the country's communist-era intelligence services.

Mr Medgyessy, who became Prime Minister in April this year, admitted he had worked as a counter-intelligence officer, or "spycatcher" between 1977 and 1982.

A Prime Minister tainted by links with its repressive, totalitarian past is the last thing Hungary wants, at a time when it is approaching the final negotiations on joining the European Union.

But Mr Medgyessy, leader of the Hungarian Socialist Party, resisted calls for his resignation yesterday, insisting he was not involved in spying on the West.

He told the Hungarian parliament that his only involvement with the intelligence services was in preventing foreign intelligence services from obtaining Hungarian secrets.

Mr Medgyessy's admission came after a Hungarian newspaper published a communist Interior document from 1978 promoting "Comrade D-209" to first lieutenant in the intelligence service.

The newspaper, Magyar Nemzet, says Comrade D-209 was Mr Medgyessy, identified in the document by his date of birth and mother's maiden name. The Prime Minister said he planned to sue the newspaper, and has called for the document to be authenticated.

In the late seventies and early eighties, Hungary was ruled by a communist regime under the sway of the Soviet Union. But at the time the country was desperately trying to distance itself from the Kremlin.

Mr Medgyessy said yesterday that his work in counter-intelligence had been connected with Hungary's secret talks at the time to join the West's International Monetary Fund, which it did in 1982 – one of the first successful moves away from Moscow.

"I helped prevent foreign spies from getting their hands on Hungarian secrets and ensured they should not be able to block our joining the IMF," he told parliament.

"I would like to emphasise that a spycatcher is not an agent, not an informant. Counter-intelligence and intelligence are ancient professions and serve to protect the country."

Jozef Oleksy, a former Polish Prime Minister, was forced to resign six years ago over allegations he had been a KGB informer, although he was later cleared of any wrongdoing by a military prosecutor. For a while yesterday, it looked as if Mr Medgyessy was going the same way.

At first, his coalition partners said they would ask for him to be replaced.

They later agreed to let him stay on, after he made a deal to put a new bill to parliament that would release classified information on those in political life, saying keeping it secret was allowing "political blackmail".

"We are in the middle of a very dirty political game and the present government should not tolerate it," Gabor Kuncze, the leader of Mr Medgyessy's partners in the coalition, said yesterday.

The scandal comes at a time when the Hungarian political scene is at its most acrimonious for years.

Mr Medgyessy only just managed to scrape together a parliamentary majority with Mr Kuncze's party's backing after an incredibly close, and bitter, election in April.

At the time his success was greeted with relief by EU leaders, who were alarmed at the increasingly nationalist rhetoric of his opponent, the incumbent Viktor Orban, who was predicted to win comfortably in the polls.

The revelations about Mr Medgyessy certainly suit Mr Orban, who has compared Mr Medgyessy's party with the old communist regime.

Mr Orban has barely conceded defeat in the elections. His party won more seats than Mr Medgyessy's but could not find a coalition partner.

He has vowed to oppose the new government tooth and claw, and began to call on his supporters to form a "civic movement of cells" to mount, among other things, street demonstrations.