European heavyweight states join EU lawsuit against Orbán’s child protection law

Germany and France join a legal case against Hungary over its child protection legislation. The laws, which experts think are deliberately conflating paedophilia with homosexuality, and have been labelled as “anti-LGBT” have been a hot topic since 2021.

A total of 15 European Union countries have joined a legal case against Hungary's Child Protection Law, widely criticised as being anti-LGBT.

Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Austria, Ireland, Denmark, Malta, Spain, Sweden, Finland, Slovenia, France, Germany and Greece, together with the European Parliament, will act as third parties in the lawsuit filed last year by the European Commission.

The Hungarian law, approved in June 2021, contains one provision that prohibits or heavily restricts depictions of homosexuality and gender reassignment in media content and educational material addressed to audiences under 18 years of age.

This bill 'goes against EU values'

"This Hungarian bill is a shame," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in 2021.

This bill clearly discriminates against people on the basis of their sexual orientation and it goes against all the fundamental values of the European Union: this is human dignity, it is equality and it's the human fundamental rights. So we will not compromise on these principles.

US ambassador to Budapest is on the warpath against Orbán

The U.S. ambassador to Budapest, David Pressman, has launched yet another attack against Viktor Orbán, this time claiming the Hungarian prime minister has identified the United States as an enemy of Hungary.

Pressman claimed that “such anti-American rhetoric from an allied country is unprecedented,” and further criticized the Orbán administration for not distancing itself from Russia despite the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

Recently Pressman has publicly criticized a tweet by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán showing solidarity with former U.S. President Donald Trump.