Hungary's anti-espionage team developed a plan to 'isolate' Tibor Szatmári and his wife Ildikó Szatmári, who are both suspected of spying, but the plan was ruined last week by Magyar Nemzet's revelations of a 'spy scandal'.

The story has been going on for some time. In April this year, a reference to the Szatmáris appeared in a discussion forum on Transindex, a Cluj (Kolozsvár) based Hungarian-language news portal. Then, on May 3, at a routine sitting of the Parliamentary National Security Committee, the Fidesz MP Ervin Demeter raised the possibility that the security services might have unearthed information about the couple. It is not clear how Demeter learned of this - in any case, in last December's referendum campaign, several leading Fidesz politicians consulted regularly with Tibor Szatmári.

Hungarian counter-intelligence clearly considered Tibor to be the more dangerous of the pair. He regularly attended the most confidential meetings of the Hungarian Standing Committee (which brings together ethnic Hungarian representatives from countries of the region). His wife, who worked in cultural and education affairs, could hardly have got access to much classified information.