Orbán vs.
von der Leyen: Budapest Pride takes center stage in Europe’s culture war
Dozens of
prominent European politicians are heading to Hungary for Pride, but the
country’s conservative government insists the parade is illegal.
June 27,
2025 4:00 am CET
By Max
Griera and Csongor Körömi
https://www.politico.eu/article/orban-vs-von-der-leyen-budapest-pride-europe-culture-war/
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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