EU Court Rules Hungary’s Anti-LGBT Law Breaches Core Union Values

On April 21, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that Hungary’s 2021 law restricting minors’ access to content about homosexuality and transgender people breaches EU law and the Union’s core values. The ruling was published in a CJEU press release in case C-769/22 and was also reported by The Guardian .

The case concerned the so-called child protection law adopted in 2021 under Viktor Orbán’s government. It banned school materials dealing with homosexuality and transgender issues and restricted such content in television programmes, films, and advertising before 10 p.m. Critics had previously compared the law to Russia’s “propaganda” law.

The court found that the Hungarian rules stigmatise and marginalise LGBT people, including people who are not cisgender, and in practice associate them with people convicted of paedophilia. According to the judgment, that violates human dignity, the prohibition of discrimination, and the freedom of expression and information of children, the wider public, and service providers, as well as EU data protection rules.

The court also rejected Budapest’s arguments about child protection and national identity. It said a member state cannot invoke national identity when a law undermines the values on which the European Union is founded. At the same time, the court for the first time in an infringement case against a member state made a separate finding of a breach of Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union, which lists respect for human dignity, democracy, equality, the rule of law, and minority rights. Hungary was ordered to comply without delay and to pay both its own legal costs and those of the European Commission.

The ruling will be one of the first legal tests for the incoming government of Péter Magyar, who won the April 12, 2026 election and is expected to take office in May. Magyar has promised to bring back frozen EU funds, some of which were withheld because of the anti-LGBT law. Most of the funding, however, was suspended for other reasons, including pressure on academic freedom, asylum rights violations, and concerns about corruption and judicial independence. Magyar has so far not said whether he will repeal the anti-LGBT measures introduced under Orbán. Hungary’s government had not publicly responded to the judgment at the time of publication.

Sixteen EU member states, including Austria, France, Germany, and Spain, joined the European Commission’s case against Hungary, along with the European Parliament. Dutch MEP Tineke Strik said the new government should place the full restoration of LGBT rights at the centre of rule-of-law reforms. The Hungarian group Háttér called the ruling an important milestone and a historic victory, and its representative Eszter Polgári said the court had made clear that no state can push LGBT people out through stigmatisation. ILGA-Europe added that Hungary cannot enter the post-Orbán era without repealing both this law and the ban on Pride marches.