(Bloomberg) — Hungary was sued by the European Union over alleged curbs on LGBTIQ rights and limits on the nation’s only opposition news radio broadcaster.
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The European Commission said Friday it’s referring Hungary to the EU Court of Justice over its “discrimination of LGBTIQ people” and for “restricting the rights of Klubradio to use radio spectrum,” according to a statement.
Hungarian law violates EU rules as it “singles out and targets content that ‘promotes or portrays’ what it refers to as ‘divergence from self-identity corresponding to sex at birth, sex change or homosexuality’ for individuals under 18,” the commission said. Separately, it said Hungary is also “in breach of EU law by applying disproportionate and non-transparent conditions to the renewal of Klubradio’s rights to use radio spectrum.”
Hungary is “surprised” that the EU decided to step up legal action against what it call a “child protection law” since it considers it a matter of national competence, Justice Minister Judit Varga wrote in a Facebook post on Friday. As for Klubradio, she said the state media authority — led exclusively by ruling-party appointees — acts independently and its decisions on frequency rights have been confirmed by the courts.
The cases follow an EU report this week citing “serious concerns” over the rule of law in Poland and Hungary. In April, Hungary became the first EU nation to get a formal notification under the bloc’s new rule-of-law budgetary powers, the so-called conditionality mechanism, in a process that could ultimately deny Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government more than 40 billion euros ($40.2 billion) in EU funding.
Orban’s ruling Fidesz has said the EU wants to stigmatize the nation for its controversial child-protection law, which critics, including the commission, say restricts LGBTIQ — lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender diverse, intersex and queer — rights.
The EU court lawsuit is part of a probe the commission started a year ago, when it sent Hungary a letter of formal notice. “As the Hungarian authorities did not sufficiently respond to the concerns of the commission in relation to equality and the protection of fundamental rights, and did not include any commitment to remedy the incompatibility, the commission” sent reasoned opinion in December.
The commission on Friday said it also sent a warning letter to Poland over concerns on the independence of its constitutional court. The EU in December gave Poland a two-month ultimatum to address its questions. Tensions grew last year after Poland’s top court ruled that some EU laws are incompatible with the country’s constitution.
(Updates with Hungarian government reaction in fourth paragraph.)
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