Top EU legal advisor: Hungary’s anti-LGBT law violates fundamental EU values

Tamara Capeta, the Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), published her opinion on Hungary’s child protection law on Thursday, and said that “by prohibiting or restricting access to LGBTI content, Hungary infringed EU law.”

In her opinion, Capeta proposed that the court also rule that Hungary had committed a self-standing infringement of Article 2 of the Treaty of the European Union.

While the Hungarian legislation, which parliament adopted in 2021, aimed to strengthen child protection and bolster a stricter stance against child abuse, parliament amended several laws in the process. Several of these had been adopted with the aim of protecting minors, and “actually prohibit or restrict access to content that portrays or promotes ‘gender identities that do not correspond to the sex assigned at birth, sex reassignment or homosexuality’ (‘LGBTI content’),” Capeta said.

The EC turned to the CJEU, saying that Hungary had “infringed EU law on three different levels: primary and secondary law relating to the internal market in services, as well as the General Data Protection Regulation … several rights of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights … and Article 2 TEU.”

In her statement, Capeta proposed that the court rule that the EC action “is well-founded in relation to all grounds”.

The amendments “infringe the freedom to provide and receive services as enshrined in primary EU law and in one or several provisions of the Directive on electronic commerce, the Services Directive, the Audiovisual Media Services Directive, as well as the GDPR,” the statement said. Further, they also “interfere with a number of fundamental rights protected by the Charter, namely the prohibition of discrimination on grounds of sex and sexual orientation, the respect for private and family life, the freedom of expression and information, as well as the right to human dignity.”