A delegation of EU lawmakers visiting Hungary has called on Europe’s top court to suspend a new law banning Budapest Pride, as they criticised a “very hostile atmosphere” for LGBTQ+ people in the country and urged a return to “real democracy”.
Tineke Strik, a Dutch Green politician who led a cross-party group of MEPs to investigate democratic standards in Hungary, said developments were going “rapidly in the wrong direction”.
Concluding the three-day visit on Wednesday, Strik said: “We eagerly want this country to turn back into a real democracy, because we think that Hungarian citizens should enjoy the same rights and values as we all do into the EU.”
The five MEPs arrived in Hungary on the day that lawmakers passed a constitutional amendment allowing the government to ban LGBTQ+ events. That change codified a law passed in March banning Pride marches and allowing authorities to use facial recognition technology to track attenders so they could be fined. It has been described by one rights group as a “full-frontal attack” on LGBTQ+ people.
Strik said: “Organisers and participants of the Budapest Pride risk facing criminal charges for marching peacefully in support of diversity, equality and freedom, as they have done for the last 29 years.”
The MEPs said they were calling on the European Commission – the guardian of EU law – to ask the European court of justice to suspend the law pending further legal action.
In response to the constitutional changes, the European Commission said on Tuesday it would not hesitate to act if necessary. The Guardian has requested comment on the MEPs’ request for suspension, known as an interim measure.
Krzysztof Śmiszek, of the Polish New Left, said the new law had created “a very hostile atmosphere” for LGBTQ+ Hungarians that had “already led to rise of physical, violent attacks and other types of hate crimes”.
Michał Wawrykiewicz, a centre-right Polish MEP who campaigned to preserve independent judiciary in his home country, said the group had observed an “indisputable deterioration of the situation” and “an open denial of the rule of law”. He also said some officials had shown a “very aggressive approach toward us” and “rude behaviour”.
Sophie Wilmès, a former Belgian prime minister and a liberal MEP, said some authorities had displayed “very aggressive rhetoric” towards the group. She voiced alarm about pressure on independent media. She said the Hungarian government’s extensive control of the media landscape meant “smear campaigns have become the new norm”.
Several government departments declined to meet the MEPs, without giving any reason, Strik said. Three nationalist and far-right European parliament groups declined to join the parliamentary visit: the European Conservatives and Reformists, Patriots for Europe and the Europe of Sovereign Nations Group.
The visit wrapped up soon after the US government announced it was lifting sanctions on a close aide to Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, describing the punitive measures as “inconsistent with US foreign policy interests”.
Antal Rogán had been added to the US sanctions list in January, in the final days of Joe Biden’s administration, for alleged corruption. The Hungarian government said at the time it intended to challenge this as soon as Donald Trump took office.
Orbán is one of Trump’s biggest supporters, once saying he would open several bottles of champagne if Trump was re-elected. Hungary was the only EU member state to vote against the EU’s retaliatory measures against Trump’s tariffs, which were later suspended after a last-minute policy reversal by the White House.
In an awkward moment for the Orbán government, the Trump administration released a report on foreign trade barriers raising concerns about corruption in Hungary’s public procurement system. Hungary’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, claimed in response that parts of the report had been “dictated by” the previous US ambassador to Budapest, David Pressman, who was a vocal critic of the government’s democratic backsliding and foreign policy positions.
