EU Urged to Take Urgent Action over Hungary’s Pride Ban

Human rights groups have demanded that the European Union intervene in Hungary’s recent decision to ban Pride marches and criminalise their organisers, describing it as a violation of fundamental EU rights and values.

In March, the Hungarian Parliament hastily passed a package of amendments that make it a criminal offence to organise or participate in events deemed to contravene the country’s existing Russian-style LGBTIQ+ “propaganda law.” Introduced in 2021, that law bans the public “depiction or promotion” of homosexuality to individuals under the age of 18.

The new law, which also allows for the use of facial recognition technology to identify Pride marchers, came into effect on 15 April, ahead of the 30th anniversary edition of the Budapest Pride March which is set to take place on 28 June.  Those found guilty of organising a banned event risk up to one year imprisonment. 

Rights Groups Says EU Must Act

In a letter addressed to Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen, and two other commissioners, more than 20 LGBTIQ+ and human rights organisations described the legislation as “an attack on the EU fundamental rights of freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression”.

“We demand urgent action from the European Commission to ensure Pride organisers and people marching on 28 June 2025 in Budapest will be safe and able to enjoy their rights to peacefully assemble and to protest,” the signatories stated.

The groups urged the EU to request an interim measure from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) before 27 May. Hungary is already facing a 2022 CJEU lawsuit launched by the European Commission over its 2021 LGBTIQ+ “propaganda” law. The groups said the Commission could incorporate the new legislation into the ongoing case or initiate a separate infringement procedure.

Time-Sensitive Deadline for Legal Action

“The date by which this year’s Pride march needs to be registered with Hungarian authorities is 27 May, and within 48 hours at the latest the police will issue the ban,” the organisations explained. “Therefore, urgent action for the interim measure from the European Commission is needed before that date to protect this year’s Pride organisers and the fundamental right of every citizen of the European Union to march and assemble in Budapest.”

They warned that failing to act swiftly could result in serious and irreparable harm, including heavy fines, potential imprisonment of individuals, dispersal of the march, and the dissolution of organisations involved in the event’s planning.

EU Has Responsibility to Uphold Fundamental Rights

The groups stressed: “It is your institution alone that has the power at this stage to initiate an intervention with the potential to rectify this violation of EU fundamental rights and values… and thus provide legal protection for Pride organisers and the people who will be marching.”

Hungary’s right-wing Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, has previously accused the European Commission of interfering in its national sovereignty despite it being a EU member state since 2004.

“Here Brussels bureaucrats have no business at all; no matter what they do we will not let LGBTQ activists among our children,” he stated defiantly in 2021.

In May 2020, Hungary also banned transgender and intersex individuals from legally changing the gender or sex assigned to them at birth.