On Tuesday, November 19th, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) began the hearings in a case over Hungary’s controversial child protection law, over which the European Commission and sixteen member states sued the country for alleged discrimination against the LGBT community.
The stakes were never higher: should the court find Budapest guilty of being in a “serious and persistent breach” of the fundamental EU values and principles, it would open the door for triggering the EU’s ‘nuclear option’ (Article 7 of the Treaty of the European Union) which allows for the suspension of membership rights, including the right to vote—and veto—in the European Council.
Revoking voting rights would constitute a measure of unprecedented harshness, something that has never been done before and that would question the foundations and functioning of the entire European Union. Some member states rightly fear that allowing the Commission to exercise such power over a country could open a Pandora’s box, forever and fundamentally shift the balance of power in Europe toward Brussels.
The European Commission launched the legal procedure at the ECJ in 2022 over a bill adopted by the Hungarian parliament the year prior, 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 in 2022.
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 back then. “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!”
Opponents claim that banning gender ideology from schools, or content centrally depicting homosexuality and sex change from prime-time television, harms children by preventing them from accessing both sides of the discussion, as well as contributing to “a climate of fear” that lowers the “well-being of society.”
On the other hand, conservative activists warned that the lawsuit and the subsequent infringement procedure constitute a classic case of Brussels’ “weaponization” of LGBT issues to erode national sovereignty. As explained by Frank Furedi, the director of the think tank MCC Brussels (which even published a report on the practice last year):
It has become increasingly obvious that hidden within the trojan horse of fake claims of “queer’ rights being violated lurks the real agenda, which is to use this slur to deprive nations of their rights within the EU and to attack national sovereignty.
Hungary is standing firm against a campaign of intimidation that misrepresents itself as a fight for rights. In truth, this is an orchestrated effort to challenge nations’ right to exercise their sovereignty and make independent decisions regarding social, family, and private policies.
Although it might seem at first that over half of EU member states enthusiastically rallied around the Commission to force Hungary to repeal the law or punish it by revoking its voting rights, the reality is that most had to be pressured for months before deciding to join the case.
The largest member states, for example, Germany and France, joined the lawsuit only at the very last minute, within the official deadline’s ten-day extension, even though they had six months to do so beforehand.
The countries include Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Austria, Ireland, Denmark, Malta, Spain, Sweden, Finland, Slovenia, France, Germany and Greece.
No definitive ruling is expected in the case before next summer, but the highly influential Advocate General’s opinion could be published in three to four months to signal the final outcome.
Some LGBT advocacy groups refer to the case as the “largest human rights battle in EU history.” The reason for that is not only the record number of countries taking part in the lawsuit but also the fact that the ruling will create a binding precedent that would prevent any similar future legislation in Europe from being passed.
That’s one of the outspoken goals of several advocacy groups who attacked the Hungarian law, and who pointed out that several member states, including Italy, Slovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria have either recently passed or have pending bills that would fall under the same category and would be unlawful in the EU after a positive ECJ ruling.
The case is not about Hungary, therefore, but about the ability of all member states to pass legislation to protect children from harmful ideologies and from making irreversible life-altering choices that they may regret later.
On an institutional level, if the ruling leads to the EU triggering Article 7 against Hungary and suspending its voting rights, that would also constitute an irreversible step toward turning the EU into a centralized superstate, weakening all member states in the long term forever.
