EU countries condemn Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ law

BRUSSELS — Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, France and Ireland were among European Union countries condemning their peer Hungary on Tuesday for a new antiLGBTQ law as the bloc zeroed in again on democratic failings in Budapest and its nationalist ally Warsaw.

The new law banning the “display and promotion of homosexuality” among under-18s clearly violates European Union values, Germany’s European affairs minister said ahead of talks with his 27 EU counterparts about deep concerns that Hungary and Poland violate the rule of law by trampling the freedoms of courts, academics and media, as well as restricting the rights of women, migrants and minorities.

“The European Union is not primarily a single market or a currency union. We are a community of values, these values bind us all,” Roth told reporters ahead of the meeting in Luxembourg.

“There should be absolutely no doubt that minorities, sexual minorities too, must be treated respectfully.”

Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg authored a joint declaration condemning the latest legal changes under Prime Minister Viktor Orban as violating the right to freedom of expression and a “flagrant form of discrimination based on sexual orientation.”

The Swedish minister said the Hungarian law was “grotesque,” his Dutch colleague called on Budapest to undo it while their Irish counterpart said the bloc’s executive should sue it at the top EU court. Austria said it was wrong to park the anti-LGBTQ provisions in a bill penalizing pedophilia.

“I am very concerned ... It is wrong what has happened there and has to stop,” said Ireland’s Thomas Byrne.