Things between the European Union and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán have never been especially warm, but they are downright chilly at the moment. The bombastic Hungarian prime minister, along with being an enormous nationalist thorn in Ursula Von der Leyen’s best-laid plans for total EU domination of every country within their purview, has also rattled nerves and cages with his pro-Russia stances and combative attitudes on national sovereignty.
He also has a distinctly unfiltered tendency. Says what he’s thinking, and it’s usually at direct or nearly direct loggerheads with whatever plan the Brahmins of Brussels are carefully putting together.
For instance, the EU has been working on a new package of Russian sanctions, but Orbán and his Slovakian counterpart are refusing to play. By EU rules, all 27 member nations have to agree, so this is causing quite a kerfuffle and no end to the irritation they feel about having to deal with Orbán.
The two countries want assurances that Russian natural gas would be dropped from the sanctions package, as land-locked Hungary depends on those imports for 2/3 of its natural gas supply. If the EU is going to go ahead and sanction the gas, Hungary and Slovakia want to be compensated for being stripped of their primary energy source.
Hungary’s energy security chief on Wednesday slammed the European Union for not providing enough support to help smaller, landlocked countries move away from Russian natural gas.
Csaba Marosvari, Hungary’s deputy state secretary for energy security, told attendees at the Gastech conference in Houston that smaller, landlocked states, including Hungary, need more funding to cut reliance on Russian gas.
Around two-thirds of Hungary’s gas imports come from Russia, but pressure is mounting for the country along with some of its neighbors to diversify more quickly away from Russian energy, following Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
It doesn’t help the situation that this is all in the name of Ukraine, which is another sticking point for Orbán, who has been ‘widely seen as Russia’s closest ally in the EU’ and vocal in his support for Vladimir Putin.
Everything’s not hunky-dory in Hungary either, and Orbán is heading into an election cycle where, for the first time in years, he may have a real challenge on his hands.
Part of Orbán’s appeal has been his ability to speak to Hungarians’ sense of national pride and cultural uniqueness, and use that as a foil against the EU’s wish to impose its version of a collective. In a rocky economic period and tough election cycle, and against rising corruption accusations, the Orbán government is doubling down on its version of what defines Hungarian values in an effort to woo disaffected voters.
Pride parades, it has been decided, do not. In March, the Hungarian parliament overwhelmingly passed a law banning the events under the umbrella of their previously passed ‘child protection’ legislation.
Hungary’s parliament passed a law on Tuesday banning Pride events and allowing police to use facial recognition software to identify attendees, continuing a crackdown by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s right-wing populist party on the country’s LBGTQ+ community.
The legislation, supported by Orbán’s Fidesz party and their minority coalition partner the Christian Democrats, passed in a 136-27 vote. It was pushed through parliament in an accelerated procedure after being submitted only a day earlier.
It amends Hungary’s law on assembly to make it an offence to hold or attend events that violate the country’s contentious “child protection” legislation, which prohibits the “depiction or promotion” of homosexuality to anyone aged under 18.
Attending a banned event will carry fines up to 200,000 Hungarian forints (€503), which the state must forward to “child protection,” according to the text of the law. Authorities may use facial recognition tools to identify people attending a prohibited event, it says.
As the vote was being held, opposition lawmakers from the Momentum party ignited smoke bombs in the chamber, filling it with thick plumes of colourful smoke.
…”This is not child protection, it is fascism,” said Máté Hegedűs, press officer for the event. “Pride is a movement that cannot be banned.”
This, as you can well imagine, has come into direct conflict with Von der Leyen’s central tenet of EU life – anything goes except national sovereignty.
To that end, the EU’s Queen Bee has released a video calling on Hungarian authorities to allow the Budapest Pride festivities to proceed without any repercussions.
I call on the Hungarian authorities to allow the Budapest Pride to go ahead.
Without fear of any criminal or administrative sanctions against the organisers or participants.
To the LGBTIQ+ community in Hungary and beyond:
I will always be your ally. pic.twitter.com/Wz0GBFRz8C
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) June 25, 2025
“…I call on the Hungarian authorities to allow the Budapest Pride to go ahead. Without fear of any criminal or administrative sanctions against the organisers or participants. To the LGBTIQ+ community in Hungary and beyond: I will always be your ally…”
The thing is, though, they didn’t exactly BAN the Pride Parade at all. They ‘banned’ holding it on public streets. Authorities suggested that, since the parade or whatever, in public would be in full view of children – and we’ve all seen what happens – why not hold it in a stadium or similar venue, where age could be monitored for entry?
To my mind, that was pretty accommodating. Have your party, but keep that raunchy crap where it’s attended by age-appropriate participants.
WIN-WIN for everyone, right?
...Based on the law, police later banned the celebration of Budapest Pride because it would take place “in the presence of persons under 18 years of age”. The government suggested it could be alternatively held in an enclosed location, like a stadium.
The liberal mayor of Budapest, Gergely Karacsony, struck a defiant tone and announced the celebration of an umbrella event called “Day of Freedom” to bypass the prohibition.
“Budapest city hall will organise the Budapest Pride march as a local event on 28 June. Period,” Karacsony said last week.
Nope.
Narcissistically, they want it all hanging out there for the kiddies to enjoy.
And this is where I lose every last bit of sympathy.
In all honesty, what ‘Pride Parade’ in years has been about ‘marching for rights’ instead of an excuse for a deviant, demented carnival show (Ed’s VIP piece today talks about the backlash the trans movement has wreaked on the whole Pride movement.)?
…Not so in Hungary. In February, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán announced that this year’s Pride parade in Budapest would not go ahead. If it did, he warned, it could break child-protection laws against the public promotion of homosexuality and transgender ideology. The government instead suggested the event might be held in an enclosed venue, like a stadium, to prevent under-18s from watching the spectacle. Budapest’s mayor has nonetheless vowed that the parade will go ahead this weekend, as part of a ‘Day of Freedom’ organised by the city council.
This has, of course, infuriated Brussels. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has urged the Hungarian government to back down on its ban and to allow Pride to go ahead. She declared: “In Europe, marching for your rights is a fundamental freedom. You have the right to love who you want to love and be exactly who you are.”
The thing is, Pride has long ceased to be about marching for rights, particularly in the West. Yes, in Hungary same-sex marriages are not recognised (although LGBT people can opt for registered partnerships), making it an outlier in Europe. But how much of the rainbow-coloured, leather-clad display put on in the streets of European cities every year is really about “rights”? It is surely less about anything as tangible as marriage or adoption or an equal age of consent, and more about receiving mass validation for a way of life.
Good luck finding one.
So now there’s a Hungarian stand-off, with EU types on one side and Hungarians on the other, in the works for the 28th.
…Hungary has warned EU ambassadors and their staff not to attend Saturday’s Pride march in Budapest, saying that police had banned the gathering, according to a letter seen by AFP on Wednesday.
March organisers meanwhile sent their own letter, insisting that police had no authority to ban the procession and vowing it will go ahead as planned.
…”The legal situation is clear: the Pride parade is a legally banned assembly… those who take part in an event prohibited by the authorities commit an infraction,” said the letter signed by Justice Minister Bence Tuzson and dated Tuesday.
“Kindly ensure that your co-workers and colleagues are duly informed of these facts, in order to maintain clarity,” it added.
Pride organisers, in turn, sent a letter to embassies insisting the police had no right to ban the event – organised by the city council – and that the march is “neither banned nor unlawful”.
…Several members of the European Parliament have said they will attend the parade.
European equalities commissioner Hadja Lahbib is expected in Budapest on Friday and may attend the march, as may ministers from several European Union countries, according to the organisers.
MAMMA MIA! MAMMA MIA!
Thunderbolt and lightning, this could spark some ugly EU public fighting.
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