At the very last minute, Germany, France, and Slovenia have also decided to join the now 14-member coalition of EU countries who back the Commission’s lawsuit over Hungary’s child protection law, viewed as discriminatory for LGBT groups by Brussels, but considered a matter of sovereignty by Budapest.
The European Commission launched the legal procedure at the EU Court of Justice (ECoJ) last year over a 2021 bill adopted by the Hungarian parliament, which—apart from introducing stricter laws to protect children from pedophilia—banned the promotion of homosexuality and gender transition in schools and media (without specific parental consent), similar to a bill introduced by Governor DeSantis in Florida last year.
According to the Hungarian government, the law is not discriminatory, since it does not affect homosexual or transgender adults, only the sexual education of children. “The issue is not about adults in relation to gender, but about children, about who is given authority in sex education: schools or parents,” Prime Minister Orbán said in an interview last year. “Children mustn’t be allowed to receive any kind of instruction related to sexual identity in kindergarten or school without the permission of their parents. That’s a red line!”
The lawsuit is part of the wider rule of law dispute that has been ongoing for a decade now. It is also part of the reason why the Commission still withholds billions of cohesion and COVID-19 recovery funds from Hungary. With the current lawsuit, the EU aims to force Hungary to repeal the law.
Before yesterday, the European Parliament and eleven countries had already joined the lawsuit. As we wrote on Monday, April 3rd, Sweden joined just a week before the April 6th deadline, despite the rule of law issues being at the center of objections raised in Hungary ahead of ratifying the Nordic country’s NATO accession, a decision which could potentially delay Stockholm’s integration into the Atlantic alliance.
Besides Sweden, the Commission is backed in the fight by Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Malta, Austria, and Finland, and now by France, Germany, and Slovenia as well.
France and Germany—as the EU’s largest and most influential member states—were criticized for sitting on the fence about the issue. While rebuking the law before, neither country decided to formally join the court case until now. Both countries joined the lawsuit in the last minutes of the official deadline’s ten-day extension, which ended on Thursday, April 6th.
With fourteen member states and Parliament now firmly on the Commission’s side, Hungary will have a hard time defending its case in front of the ECoJ.
