EU imposes sanctions on Hungary, sending a signal to the queer community
Hungary and its political leader Viktor Orbán are now threatened with the reduction of financial support from the EU. The reason given for this is the anti-queer policy that the re-elected president is pursuing in his country.
Hungary has been in the headlines lately. Again and again, also on the part of the EU, it was criticized that many queers there are exposed to discrimination and intolerance. Not only the thinking of the people, but also the legislation in the country plays an important role in this context. For example, homosexual couples in Hungary are prohibited from adopting children. Content around LGBTQI+ has also been removed from the school curriculum. It almost seems as if the goal is to exclude the topic in order to be able to ignore it as best as possible.
Such exclusion is not in the interest of the EU and therefore Hungary must be sanctioned for it, he said. As a result of the said sanctions, Hungary is now losing 40 billion euros in support.
Věra Jourová takes a stand on Twitter
Via Twitter, the liberal EU Justice Commissioner Věra Jourová let it be known that a letter with the sanctions had already been sent to Budapest.
It now remains to be seen how Hungary will react to the letter. The letter states that the Commission has problems with Hungary's rule of law and that this could drastically affect the EU budget.
Strictly speaking, it cannot be said that the "punishment" came without warning. Among other things, von der Leyen had already repeatedly spoken out and strongly criticized the homophobic laws in Hungary.
Are the sanctions justified?
This is a question that many people are likely to ask themselves. On paper, the situation seems clear: only recently, a decision was issued stating that EU member states that violate the rule of law can be deprived of financial resources. Only the governments of Poland and Hungary had opposed this decision, considering the decree an abuse of power.
However, there are actually many reasons why the EU does not want to continue paying out financial resources to Hungary. Among other things, the EU repeatedly criticizes that the judiciary in Hungary is no longer independent and is being restricted.
In addition, the restriction of minority rights and laws against minorities, such as the LGBTQI+ community, repeatedly leads to discussions.
Von der Leyen repeatedly criticizes anti-queer policies in Hungary
Von der Leyen recently stated that the laws in Hungary provide a "pretext to severely discriminate against people because of their sexual orientation." Therefore, she also supports the corresponding sanctions.
However, the financial cancellation of the high amount will not take effect immediately. It will take some time before the sanction finally takes effect.
Moreover, Hungary still has the possibility to react to the letter in the next two months. In this case, the Hungarian head of state would have to submit a proposal on how to change the current situation.
After that, the Commission must examine the proposal and possibly request a new opinion. Only then could a financial sanction take effect.
It now remains to be seen how Hungary will react to the sanctions and whether there will be a rethink in policy there. However, a look at the past shows that it would certainly be a bit naive to expect too much here. Queer life has been severely restricted in Hungary for a long time. In recent years, there have been no positive changes here that could be called "milestones," for example.
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