The European Commission is suing Hungary over a contentious anti-LGBTQ law, and 15 EU nations have joined the case, making it the largest human rights case in EU legal history, according to civil society organizations.
In addition to Slovenia, the governments of France, Germany, and Slovenia joined the case at midnight on Thursday, April 6.
The long-running rule of law disagreement between the EU and the Hungarian government, as well as the culture wars, have just entered the courtroom over the 2021 child protection bill.
Improved sexual crimes against children prevention, identification, and punishment was the initial goal of the bill. Further changes to the Hungarian constitution, however, prohibited children from accessing any material that “promotes or shows deviations from self-identification matching to the sex at birth, gender reassignment, or homosexuality.”
Human rights groups and international watchdog organizations have criticized the law as discriminatory against LGBT people, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has called it a “disgrace.”
The EU Court of Justice received a complaint from the European Commission against Hungary about the bill in the middle of 2022. The bill, according to the EU executive, “violates human dignity, freedom of speech and information, the right to respect for private life, and the right to non-discrimination,” in addition to other EU laws on the single market.
The first country to declare support was Belgium, who was swiftly followed by Luxembourg and the Netherlands. The European Parliament and six additional member states, including Portugal, Denmark, Austria, Malta, Spain, and Ireland, followed by Sweden, Finland, Slovenia, Greece, France, and Germany, confirmed their support in the weeks that followed.
The European Parliament is also a plaintiff in the case.
“The majority of EU member states have said enough to Viktor Orban by copying the Kremlin’s ideology against LGBTIQ+ people. Never before has Europe been so united and determined on LGBTIQ+ rights. This is what Orban has achieved,” said Remi Bonney, executive director of Forbidden Colors, an LGBTIQ+ advocacy group run by the King Baudouin Foundation.
Italy and Poland, whose governments are socially conservative, are the most prominent truants on the list.
Orbán supports the Kremlin’s policy and is probably planning to become a dictator like Putin. Who knows what problems this could lead to. It’s time for the world to unite on the path to democracy and confront such tyrants as Putin, Orban and others.
