Since taking office for the second time in 2010, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán has orchestrated state-sponsored hate campaigns against refugees, Roma and Muslims. Now, after his government’s latest authoritarian crackdown, Hungary’s LGBTQI community are battling for their right to live in peace inside an EU member state. Under a law passed last month, the “promotion of homosexuality or gender change” to under-18s—which could include teachers discussing sexuality with pupils and potentially even Oscar Wilde and Shakespeare being taught in literature classes—has been banned.
Will a government so hostile to refugees end up creating its own? Political influencers in Brussels have failed over the past decade to stop Orbán in his tracks. But the international condemnation and outcry of the past few weeks might now force his hand.
The political situation in Hungary is changing fast. The opposition has begun to coalesce into an alliance that could potentially depose Orbán. Some polls suggest his opponents are ahead. So it is no coincidence that the government has suddenly conjured up a new “enemy” (the law has been accused of conflating LGBTQI people with paedophiles, an age-old homophobic trope) that only it can defend the Hungarian people against. This is not Hungary’s first homophobic legislation: over the past decade a pattern has emerged and in December 2020, parliament banned adoption by same-sex couples. This was shortly after József Szájer, a key Orbán ally and Member of the European Parliament, was caught by Brussels police trying to flee a male sex party during lockdown.
The EU should blame itself for the Hungarian government’s bigotry. Brussels notoriously makes candidate countries jump through all manner of hoops, reforming their politics for years prior to accession. But once inside the club, members can dismantle the free press, stack the judiciary with cronies and target minorities with little more than a slap on the wrist. Hungary’s unsanctioned authoritarian turn has also inspired countries like Poland—and Slovenia, which took on the EU presidency last week—to see what intolerant policies they can get away with. And due to unanimous decision-making in the bloc for politically sensitive decisions, any move to punish one country is now blocked by another. Similarly, attempts to strike crucial trade deals and reach common foreign policy decisions can be railroaded whenever Orbán sees fit. The EU voting system should not be able to be gamed in this way.
Hungary is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the EU’s largesse—funds which are subject to among the highest number of irregularities of any member state, according to the bloc’s own anti-fraud office—and in return takes a wrecking ball to the values the community it purports to hold dear. The European Commission is obliged to prevent any discrimination based on sexual orientation in the way these funds are used, and has the powers to suspend funds where this happens. It has already done so in a limited way by blocking EU funding going to Polish municipalities that have set up “LGBT-free zones.” If Hungary’s new law comes into force, the EU should immediately review whether all existing and future funding, such as support for the digital and audio-visual sectors, where censorship and propaganda can be rife, would in effect be bankrolling discrimination. This is a necessary counterpart to the legal action that the Commission has promised to take. It should also provide funding for non-profit organisations that provide invaluable assistance to young LGBTQI people who live under this state-sanctioned hostility.
This could be the moment of truth—and it must be. The law is not an isolated incident but part of a decade-long project to construct a one-party state in the service of an illiberal agenda. Seventeen member states have now signed a statement denouncing the Hungarian law as “a flagrant form of discrimination.” The same 17 countries should also be preparing to finally vote on Hungary’s rule of law record in disciplinary proceedings started over three years ago. They should examine if this track record warrants the suspension of all funding, under new powers granted to the EU last year to protect the rule of law. The institutions—Parliament, Commission and Council—seem to be in rare alignment on this issue. It would be embarrassing if nothing happens now. How could the EU have any credibility denouncing similar discriminatory practices in Russia, the Middle East or Africa if it cannot even protect its own citizens in one of its own member states?
Orbán has avoided a reckoning with the EU’s political leadership over the past 11 years. Now the EU must find the courage to take a long-overdue stand, protect all its citizens, and stop bank-rolling the subversion of its values.
