BUDAPEST — A who’s who of European politicians is descending on Budapest in a battle of wills with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, seeking to defy his government’s ban on Saturday’s Pride parade.
After weeks of silence, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen finally backed the celebrations in a video statement on Wednesday. “I call on the Hungarian authorities to allow the Budapest Pride to go ahead,” she said. “To the LGBTIQ+ community in Hungary and beyond: I will always be your ally.”
Orbán immediately hit back on social media and urged von der Leyen “to refrain from interfering in the law enforcement affairs of member states.”
While she will not be there in person to defy Orbán, more than 70 members of the European Parliament do plan to attend. They will be joined by Spanish Culture Minister Ernest Urtasun, Dutch Minister of Education Eppo Bruins, French government representatives, mayors from major European capitals, former Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo, and former Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar.
Belgium’s European Commissioner Hadja Lahbib will also travel to Budapest on Friday in the run-up to the event.
Hungary, meanwhile, is making clear the foreign dignitaries will be breaking the law.
Illegal activities
Despite the roster of international guests, Justice Minister Bence Tuzson insists the parade is banned.
In a letter addressed to several embassies this week and obtained by POLITICO, he reiterated that organizers could be imprisoned and that the celebrations are illegal. The letter was prompted by a joint statement from dozens of Budapest-based ambassadors, mostly from EU countries, backing the event and its organizers.
“Kindly ensure that your co-workers and colleagues are duly informed of these facts, in order to maintain clarity,” Tuzson wrote. “The legal situation is clear: The Pride parade is a legally banned assembly, organising or announcing which qualifies as a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment for up to one year under Hungarian law … Those who take part in an event prohibited by the authorities commit an infraction.”
Even though they are acting illegally, it is seen as unlikely that the marchers will be directly challenged by the police or by far-right counter-protesters. During a press briefing on Thursday, Orbán said he was calling on people not to attend but noted the use of force was not planned. “Hungary is a civilized country. We do not hurt each other,” he added.
Of greater concern is whether the government will use facial recognition technology to fine attendees, something being examined by the Commission as it could breach EU law.
In a sign that attendees don’t view the event as dangerous, a spokesperson for Spanish Culture Minister Urtasun, who will be present, told POLITICO they “are not in touch with the Hungarian police.”
“I am not afraid of the Hungarian police or the far-right activists emboldened by Viktor Orban’s populist rhetoric; we are here to defend European values alongside the Hungarian citizens who have come to protest. This will undoubtedly be a historic event in the fight against authoritarian regimes,” said French MEP Chloé Ridel from the Socialist group.
According to a European Parliament spokesperson, “all is in place to ensure the safety and security of MEPs as well as all those accompanying them.”
Not falling into Orbán’s trap
Despite the international mobilization, no political player in Hungary is seizing on that liberal momentum. Although several pro-LGBTQ+ parties will attend the Pride march, such as the left-leaning Democratic Coalition, Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony’s Green Party, or the satirical Two-Tailed Dog Party, their support lags far behind that of opposition leader Péter Magyar.
Magyar’s Tisza party has led the polls for months with a widening margin over Orbán’s ruling Fidesz party. However, Tisza has systematically avoided the ban on Budapest Pride, as it has the wider topic of LGBTQ+ rights and identity politics, as it works to build a broad majority to snatch power from Orbán in the upcoming April 2026 election.
“We refuse to walk into Orbán’s trap. We will not be used in a culture-war provocation designed to divide society and distract from the collapse of public services and the soaring cost of living. A Tisza-led government, of course, would not undermine the freedom of assembly,” Magyar’s right-hand man, MEP Zoltán Tarr, told POLITICO.
“We want our fellow MEPs to understand that the only way to minimize the benefit to Orbán and maximize the benefit for Hungary is to avoid falling into his trap. He wants a moral outrage show so he can say: ‘Brussels is attacking Hungary again.’ But this isn’t about values in the abstract, it’s about very concrete harm to Hungarian citizens,” he added.
Culture war
With a far-right surge sweeping the continent, accompanied by wider backtracking on sexual and gender self-identification rights, the organizers see the parade as a chance to show the world there is more to Hungary than Orbán’s illiberal government.
“Symbolically, it’s so good, I think, that we can show that Budapest is free and Hungarians are not equal to the government of Hungary,” said Richárd Barabás, co-chair of Mayor Karácsony’s Green Party Párbeszéd. The Pride parade “will be a common stand-up against the oppressive regime of Viktor Orbán … Far beyond Pride itself or the curtailing of the rights of the LGBTQI community, I think it’s about Europe, it’s about the rule of law, and it’s about our core values as Europeans.”
Hungary, with its far-right government led by Fidesz, has led the charge against the continent’s liberal approach to civil rights and sexual and gender freedoms. In recent years, Orbán has adopted rhetoric styled after the conservative MAGA movement in the U.S., becoming the European firebrand of a global charge against “gender ideology” and “woke culture.”
In the first decade of the 21st century Hungary was one of the most progressive EU countries in terms of LGBTQ+ rights, but slipped back after Orbán came to power in 2010 and quickly banned same-sex marriage and adoption. In 2021 his government passed a child protection law that allowed authorities to ban content for children portraying or promoting homosexuality and gender reassignment.
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 a major confrontation, with the government on one side and Mayor Karácsony and the organizers of Budapest Pride on the other.
Budapest Pride’s organizers vowed they’d hold their annual event regardless, just as they have every year since the capital became the first Eastern European city to hold a Pride march in 1997.
Soon after, Karácsony announced he had found a legal loophole to ensure celebrations could take place. Calling for the city council to organize the march, Karácsony effectively freed event organizers from having to obtain a police permit — which they were always unlikely to get.
Whether the attendees will be prosecuted and fined in a political counter-strike looks to be a question for the weeks and months ahead.
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