Commission Launches Proceedings Against Hungary and Poland

The European Commission launched three proceedings against Hungary and Poland over what it sees as violations of fundamental rights of LGBTIQ+ people, leaving Budapest and Warsaw two months to respond to its concerns, Euractiv.com reports.

The Commission said it considers Budapest’s new controversial legislative bans on “promoting or portraying” homosexuality or sex reassignment to minors and limits sexual education in schools in violation of a host of bloc laws. Among these are the EU’s fundamental freedoms such as free movement of goods and services, as well as audiovisual and e-Commerce.

In Hungary, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office said that the government would not give up the position that sex education is solely up to parents. Gergely Gulyás added that “when Brussels demands equality in sex education it means that we should allow LGBTQ activists into schools and kindergartens.” He cited the EC’s 2020 LGBTQI strategy as evidence that LGBT rights organizations wanted to send activists to schools and kindergartens, Hungary Today reports.