A recording of a call between a top Irish EU official and a journalist was intercepted and released online.
An off-the-record conversation between a communications adviser to European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and journalist Gerardo Fortuna of the Brussels-based Politico website was anonymously published online this week.
Though the recording has since been deleted, it has been reported that the EU official was Irish woman Alexandra Henman.
During the call, which took place on March 3rd, the Politico journalist was trying to verify a reported claim that the EU was trying to pressure Ukraine to allow it access to the so-called Friendship Pipeline, which carries Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia.
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Ukraine has claimed that the Druzhba pipeline was damaged in a Russian strike, while Hungary and Slovakia have claimed that it was intentionally shut off by Ukraine. Hungary blocked a €90 billion EU loan to Ukraine in protest at the oil supply being shut off.
A nine-minute recording of the call was uploaded to YouTube on a recently created channel by an unknown source, but the video has since been removed following what the YouTube app described as a privacy claim by a third party.
Politico has said that the call was off the record. After being posted online, the contents of the call were covered by Hungarian media. Politico said that it has not been able to determine how the recording was obtained and who was responsible for posting it to YouTube.
Henman, who formerly worked as deputy spokeswoman of the centre-right European People’s Party, was appointed communications adviser to von der Leyen last June.
A European Commission spokesman said he could confirm that a phone call between an official and a journalist was recorded and posted online, but said the commission would not be confirming the identity of the official.
He said that the official’s phone had been taken and analysed, as part of an ongoing investigation. There were no security breaches found on the phone, but analysis of the duration of the call shows the version that was posted online was shorter. The investigation is ongoing.
Fianna Fáil MEP Barry Andrews said that the incident showed “the dangers of spyware technologies. There have been spying scandals in several EU countries in recent years, revealing the use of unregulated spyware against journalists, businesses and politicians.”
