Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar said that a draft law on declassifying the archives of the Communist intelligence services has been submitted to the Hungarian Parliament.
We have submitted a bill to Parliament to open the archives of the Communist-era secret police. We made this promise and we will keep it. In doing so, we finally fulfill a long-overdue duty to the Hungarian people.
The draft law provides for the establishment of an independent committee of current intelligence officers, historians and archivists. He writes Bloomberg. This committee will determine which documents must remain confidential.
At the same time, standards for maintaining confidentiality will be tightened. Previously, documents were kept sealed if their publication might harm Hungary’s foreign relations. Now – only if we are talking about relations with the countries of the European Union, the European Economic Area or NATO.
Bloomberg notes that Parliament is almost certain to approve the bill, given that Magyar’s party has a constitutional majority. The documents are supposed to become available by October 23, the 70th anniversary of the uprising.
Hungary, unlike most Soviet bloc countries, never published whistleblower archives after transitioning to democracy. At the same time, historians had access to part of the archive, and citizens could find out if they were being monitored, but this information was not available to the general public.
At the end of April 2026, immediately after his victory in the Hungarian elections a promiseThe new government will open access to the archives of secret services involved in internal intelligence during the era of the communist regime.