Six weeks after the end of Viktor Orbán’s sixteen years in power, the Budapest police have authorized the upcoming LGBT Pride march, while Brussels announced the unfreezing of 16 billion euros in European funds intended for Hungary.
“No longer needing protection from the city hall, we will organize the march as before!”, congratulates Viktoria Radvanyi, president of Budapest Pride, to têtu·. A year after Viktor Orbán’s majority banned LGBT demonstrations, the LGBT+ community in Hungary can breathe a sigh of relief: the Europe’s chief homophobe, who lost the parliamentary elections in April, has seen the police indicate that there is no longer any reason to enforce his homophobic law. The Budapest Pride, scheduled as in Paris for Saturday, June 27, can therefore proceed normally.
“During the declaration procedure for the 2026 Pride march and the consultation with the organizers, no reason appeared to ban the gathering”, the Budapest police stated on May 29 to the Agence France-Presse (AFP), as they had done before the Budapest City Council. Last year, to circumvent the ban, the organizing association used a ruse: declaring not as a political demonstration, but as a festival under the auspices of the municipality, led by the ecologist mayor Gergely Karácsony. As a result, Budapest Pride had broken attendance records. This year, the organization calls to march “to say goodbye to the last 16 years”, those of Orbanism in power.
Budapest Secures a European Thaw
The evening of his victory, the new Prime Minister Peter Magyar, though conservative, had declared that Hungary had chosen to be a country where “no one is stigmatized for loving differently”. On Friday, he was in Brussels to meet the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who announced the progressive unlocking of more than 16 billion euros of European funds (about 13% of the country’s GDP) that had been frozen under the Orbán government due to concerns about the rule of law and insufficient progress in the fight against corruption.
“Your government is moving quickly and with determination, eager to keep the promises you made to the Hungarian people: stimulating economic recovery, fighting corruption and restoring the rule of law“, Ursula von der Leyen justified, praising these “strong winds carrying change” and announcing that Hungarian universities will be able to join the Erasmus programme in 2027. Specifically, 10 billion euros were retained under the post-Covid European recovery plan, and the rest of the Cohesion Fund: 4.2 billion suspended under the condition of the rule of law and 2.2 billion frozen in the name of protecting fundamental rights.
And what about the Putin-inspired law voted by Budapest in 2021 to ban the “promotion” of homosexuality to minors? In April, the European Court of Justice (CJEU) ruled it “contrary to the Union’s very identity”. Ursula von der Leyen expresses optimism: “Additional measures will have to be taken, but we are on the right track”, she stated. There can only be one outcome on this path: its repeal!
