The Hungarian Police announced on Thursday the prohibition of the march that the Progressive City Council of Budapest had announced to try to overcome in the country of the European Union. The march of June 28, International Pride Day, had been convened by the mayor of Budapest, Gergelly Karáross. “In this city there are no first or second -class citizens … neither freedom nor love can be prohibited, and Budapest Pride either,” said the mayor, of the Parbeszéd Green Party (dialogue).
Budapest’s pride is expected to go tens of thousands of people. Among them, at least 70 Eurodiputados from several countries, as confirmed by the policy of Netherlands, Tineke Strik, this week. The Dutch Congress also voted for a government delegation to go to the event after the movements of President Orbán be known to veto the appointment.
Likewise, the demonstration will attend, including the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, to add, the socialist deputy Víctor Gutierrez, or a delegation of Esquerra Republicana. “The manifestation will be historical and very powerful,” Gutierrez said after knowing the veto to the march. “Orbán’s prohibitions will mobilize more people,” the politician has predicted. He maintains his travel plan. In addition, the Congress of Deputies has urged the Government on Thursday to condemn the veto of the pride of Budapest. Vox, Orbán’s partner in Brussels, has rejected the proposal, while the PP has refrained.
For the mayor of Budapest, the prohibition “is not valid”, as he has written on social networks, because he considers that the Hungarian government cannot interfere in the city’s competitions: “The City Council will organize the march of Budapest Pride on June 28 as an event of the city. Point.”
Laws inspired by Putin
(of the Fidesz party) in March approved a law with which he opened the door to veto the demonstration of pride, becoming the first democracy to do so. “Prohibiting it has been a recurring idea of the extreme right. It occurs in Hungary, but it can occur in another state: the narrative is exactly the same in Slovakia or Bulgaria,” summarizes Eszter Polgári, lawyer and legal responsible for, the main LGBTI+ Hungary organization.
Hungary’s anti LGTBI+ offensive started five years ago, when the Ultra Executive began to import the laws against the collective that Vladimir Putin had been introducing in Russia since 2013. Hungary became the first EU country to travel that path. Bulgaria has followed him, which last year approved similar legislation.
The Fidesz government premiered by erasing gender studies from university programs, in 2018, and fine Coca-Cola, in 2019, for an announcement in which a homosexual couple appeared. In 2025, this state lgtbifobia has established itself with the veto to the progress of pride. (It has done it through Law III of 2025 regarding the protection of childhood, which modifies the 2018 LV Law on the right of meeting).
The European Commission has filed an appeal against Hungary before the Court of Justice in relation to one of these norms, of 2021, regarding the “LGTBI+propaganda” and that prohibits “representing or promoting the divergence of the identity corresponding to the sex of birth, sex change or homosexuality” between people under 18 years of age. The Commission considers that it violates the right of the Union on several levels, including the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Recently, the general lawyer of the EU Court of Justice, Tamara ćapeta, declared that Hungary “has been significantly diverted from the model of a constitutional democracy,” according to a statement issued at the beginning of the month. For the specialist, the rules of the Orban Executive “are based on a value judgment according to which homosexual and non -cycling life does not have the same value or status as heterosexual and cisgenero life.”
Based on its solid parliamentary majority, the FIDESZ Extreme Right Party reformed in April this year the constitution of the country to consolidate discrimination against people LGTBIQ+. The change, in addition to linking gender with sex assigned to birth, allows the State to restrict fundamental rights on the pretext of protecting childhood.
All initiatives against LGTBI+ people defended by extreme right parties in Europe – and in the rest of the world – disguise their rights cuts as measures that supposedly seek to protect society (either to childhood, women, an alleged moral order …).
Orbán’s threat
During his annual speech on the State of the Nation, in February of this year, Orbán told the ORGANIZERS OF THE PRID that they should not bother to prepare the march for this edition. Less than a month later, on March 18, the Hungarian Parliament approved the law that allows the meetings to be prohibited, if they are considered to contravene the Anti-LGTBI+Propaganda Law, the 2021.
Orbán’s party has always based its electoral success on the search for an enemy, on the promotion of the division of society. “At the beginning, everything was relatively quiet,” recalls Polgári: “When attacks against the rule of law began, an economic crisis also started; then we began to talk about the enemies of Hungarian culture. In 2015, we had the refugee crisis, and everything revolved around drawing migrants as a threat. Then, the enemy were the Roman people; the NGOs; Universities, the media … and Covid arrived.
Precisely, at the beginning of June, the Budapest police vetoed another LGTBIQ+ march in the Hungarian capital. The authorities justified their decision by citing the norm approved in March by the Ultra Executive to protect childhood.
Hungary is one of the EU countries where the rights of people LGTBIQ+are less respected. The fourth by the tail, according to the LGTBI International Association (ILGA), which annually elaborates a classification based on legal criteria, of equality and non -discrimination or of hate crimes. “The human rights of LGBTI+ people are being systematically dismantled under the pretext of preserving public order,” they denounce from the Ilga. And they warn that they are measures that end in “generalized restrictions of fundamental freedoms, including the rights to protest and political dissent.”
For Amnesty International, “Pride has been prohibited in Hungary”, an opinion that organizations Hátter Society, Hungarian Helsinki Committee, Rainbow Mission Foundation (organized by Budapest Pride) and the Hungarian Union for civil liberties.
