The European Commission sues the Hungarian government at the European Court of Justice because Hungary systematically violates the fundamental rights of LGBTQI+ persons. Specifically, this lawsuit is about the so-called Hungarian “child protection law” that has already been adopted by the Hungarian Parliament in June 2021. In the guise of child protection, this legislation represents a massive attack on the rights of LGBTQI+ persons. According to this legislation, any representation beyond heteronormativity must not be accessible to under 18 year-olds. Among others, this led to the fact that children’s books in which two princes were holding hands were no longer allowed to be sold freely.

Nine EU Member States have already joined the Commission’s lawsuit by 23 March 2023. On Tuesday (21 March 2023), the European Parliament also decided to join the Commission’s lawsuit. So far, Germany is not among the plaintiffs. According to an article by the news site Politico, this is due to resistance in the chancellery. The Hungarian legislation in question is one of the reasons why the Commission does not release funds amounting to 22 billion Euros under the Cohesion Funds to Hungary. Currently, the Hungarian government is not willing to amend the discriminatory legislation.

Daniel Freund, Member of the European Parliament for the Greens/EFA, comments:

“It is totally unacceptable that the Orban government stigmatizes and discriminates against LGBTQI+ people by law. We must not stand by and watch this violation of fundamental rights in the EU. It is absolutely correct that the Commission is now exhausting all means, freezing billions and taking the Orban government to the Court of Justice. The fact that nine Member States and the European Parliament are joining this lawsuit shows that this is not just a conflict between ‘Brussels’ and ‘Budapest’, but that Europeans do not accept this attack on our fundamental rights. It would be desirable for the federal government of Germany to join the lawsuit. That would be a clear sign that we do not accept attacks on our common European values and it would strengthen the EU institutions in the fight for fundamental rights.”