Danke Herr Vorsitzender, Dear all,
Conflating homosexuality and transidentity with paedophilia is yet another episode of the Hungarian government looking desperately for election topics, to distract from real problems like tackling corruption.
It is yet another attack on fundamental rights.
As EU, we have the political tools to protect our values. What is missing is the political will in the Council to use them.
Signing statements at Council is not enough. Concrete action must follow!
The Council must address the deterioration of fundamental rights in Hungary by issuing concrete recommendations, including a call to repeal this misleading law. This law is not only homo- and transphobic, but it is restricting severally the rights of children, rather than protecting them.
Mr Orban, you will not prevent one single young person from being gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or intersexual because this is an identity! So stop talking about ideology.
What you do is forcing young people to hide their identity, which often ends in suicide. Rather than protecting anyone, you foster hate, intolerance and aggression towards vulnerable groups.
And we don’t have to look far to see what happens when politicians follow Russia-style narratives on LGBTI-people. On Monday, thousands of far-rightist hooligans violently disrupted Tbilisi Pride. The organisers had to flee for their lives and journalists have been beaten up.
Is this the direction we want for the EU?
Will we allow the Hungarian and Polish government to create an environment of violence towards people like me and many others? The Council and the Commission must take bold action now.
