Senior Spanish government officials accused the European Commission of “complicity” with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s ban on an LGBTQ+ Pride parade in Budapest this weekend.
The officials criticized the Commission under President Ursula von der Leyen for failing to challenge before the European Court of Justice the Hungarian law on which Orbán based his ban, adding to the frustrations of EU political parties, civil society organizations and Hungarian activists.
“First, the government of Spain is here, defending human rights and democracy. Second, denouncing the complicity of the European Commission. And third, sending a message not only to Europe, but to the rest of the world,” Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Díaz told POLITICO in Budapest during a European Green Party rally ahead of the Pride parade.
“What we represent as the government of Spain, from Budapest to the world, is hope … the far right always comes from the margins and goes to the center,” she said. “They are not questioning the rights of the LGBTI people alone; they go from the rights of the LGBTI people and women to the center until democracy is colonized,” she said.
This past March, Orbán’s government passed legislation prohibiting public assemblies that “promote or display” the LGBTQ+ community, under the pretext of protecting children. Effectively banning Pride celebrations nationwide, the measure set up Budapest as the epicenter of Europe’s culture war, with European politicians condemning the move and government officials and elected lawmakers descending on the Hungarian capital to protest.
European Commission chief von der Leyen urged Orbán to allow Pride to go ahead, but the EU executive is still deciding whether to launch a court case over the Hungarian bill. The Commission had already challenged a previous Hungarian law banning LGBTI+ content for children in 2021, and is now waiting for the final court ruling on that.
EU Equality Commissioner Hadja Lahbib defended the Commission, citing the challenge to the 2021 law, a challenge the high court’s Advocate General Tamara Ćapeta supported in an opinion in early June.
“So we are analyzing the law … you know we have to be strategic sometimes,” Lahbib told a press conference in Budapest the day before the Pride parade.
“You have to choose your moments and we don’t want to interfere, neither on national affairs and competencies, neither during a procedure which is sensitive,” Lahbib said.
‘Words are not enough’
Díaz’s colleague, Culture Minister Ernest Urtasun, who also joined the march in Budapest, said Spain’s government is “very, very concerned” about the issue. “It is a duty” of all progressive governments to “stand in the way” when there are attacks against fundamental rights, he added.
Echoing Díaz, Uratsun said the government in Madrid expects “the European Commission to be strong in defending EU law.”
“We would like the European Commission to be much stronger than it has been doing in the last months,” Uratsun said.
The Spanish delegation was joined in Budapest by government representatives from France and the Netherlands, as well as lawmakers from dozens of other countries and mayors from major European capitals.
During a press conference Saturday morning, the chairs of the European Parliament Socialist, Left, Green and liberal groups also urged the Commission to launch a challenge on the law.
“Words are not enough,” said Socialists and Democrats group leader Iratxe García Pérez. “We need action. And action means that the European Commission start the infringement procedure against this law,” García Pérez said.
Civil society organizations are also calling on the European Commission to intervene against Hungary’s potential use of facial recognition technology to identify attendees in the Pride parade. Dozens of digital and human rights groups said Hungary’s use of the technology is “a glaring violation” of the European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act, in an open letter to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her colleagues in charge of technology, rule of law and equality, as first reported by POLITICO.
In a joint declaration at the end of May, 20 member states including Spain, Germany and France stated their concerns regarding Orbán’s crackdown on fundamental rights, and called on the Commission to use all means at its disposal to prevent democratic backsliding in Hungary.
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