After heated debate and vocal protests in the Bulgarian Parliament in August, a controversial new bill prohibiting the “propaganda, promotion, or incitement” of LGBTQ+ “ideas and views” in schools passed into law with a large majority. It was just the latest example of an alarming trend in recent years that has seen several European Union member states take active legislative steps to backtrack on LGBTQ+ rights, protections and freedoms.
It all looked quite different back at the turn of the 21st century when, in a watershed moment for LGBTQ+ rights, the Netherlands became the first EU country to legalize same-sex marriage, presaging sweeping changes across the bloc. Over the following 15 years, almost every member state introduced either marriage equality or some form of civil partnership, culminating in Ireland’s historic referendum victory on the issue in 2015. At the time, after almost two decades of significant rights advances, it seemed inconceivable that the future trajectory of the LGBTQ+ cause would be anything other than progressive.
As with so many other issues across the EU, however, the LGBTQ+ political landscape has been transformed by the rise of the far right, spearheaded by the authoritarian populism of the Fidesz party in Hungary and the Law and Justice party in Poland. During the 2010s and early 2020s, the governments in both Budapest and Warsaw relentlessly weaponized the issue of LGBTQ+ rights to solidify their conservative electoral bases, engaging in constant homophobic rhetoric, banning pride marches, arresting rights activists and introducing anti-LGBTQ+ “propaganda” laws that have increasingly pushed LGBTQ+ communities “into the shadows,” as Amnesty International put it in a February 2024 report. Though the Law and Justice party was eventually ousted from power in 2022, Poland remains the worst EU country in which to be gay or trans, while anti-LGBTQ+ policies continue apace in Hungary under Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
The LGBTQ+ backlash is most pronounced among Eastern European states, as evidenced by the recent refusal of Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Lithuania, Latvia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to sign an EU declaration against homophobia, transphobia and biphobia. But the pushback is steadily expanding across the bloc as the far right gains political traction in almost every member state.
The intensity of the backlash is inevitably strongest where the far right has its hands on the levers of power. In Italy, for example, where Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy party leads a hard-right coalition government, LGBTQ+ rights have come under sustained attack. Most recently, an unprecedented ban on birth surrogacy abroad, punishable by fines of up to 1 million euros and two years in prison, was just passed into law last week. The move is widely viewed as targeting same-sex couples, who are already prohibited from adopting in Italy. France’s National Rally and the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, are both similarly hostile to LGBTQ+ rights, but while they are both currently riding high in the polls, they have yet to enter government at either the regional or national level and thus are limited in the measures they can force through.
Another important factor in the intensity of the backlash from country to country is the extent to which the other typical preoccupations of the far right take precedence over the targeting of LGBTQ+ rights, a balance that is often determined by the distinctive strains of far-right ideology in individual countries and how much traction the issue has with voters. While migration is undoubtedly the top priority for all far-right parties across the bloc, national movements have also run particularly hard on the issue of LGBTQ+ rights in more religiously devout countries, like Spain and Italy.
While the anti-LGBTQ+ strategies of the far right may vary from country to country, the fallout for LGBTQ+ communities across the EU is the same.
In longtime bastions of social liberalism like the Netherlands and Finland, however, where the issue of immigration cuts far more ice with voters than legislative gay-bashing, the strategy is more nuanced. For instance, Geert Wilders—the far-right Dutch politician whose Party for Freedom is the leading party in both parliament and the ruling coalition government—has adroitly exploited the issue of homophobia to attack Muslim immigrants by selectively feigning concern for the safety of the LGBTQ+ community. Wilders recently declared that “gay people are one of the first to pay the price of … Islamisation.” In France, the National Rally, which in the late 2010s boasted “more high level gay figures than any other major party” and actively courted the gay vote, is still formally committed to repealing the country’s marriage equality law. But in recent years it has eased up on homophobic rhetoric.
While the anti-LGBTQ+ strategies of the far right may vary from country to country, the fallout for LGBTQ+ communities across the EU is the same. A major survey published in 2023 by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Transsexual and Intersex Association of Europe, or ILGA-Europe, found that violence against LGBTQ+ people in Europe has reached its highest level in more than a decade, including “planned, ferocious attacks … and widespread hate speech from politicians, religious leaders, right-wing organizations and media pundits.” Gun attacks on queer venues in liberal Oslo and conservative Bratislava, which killed a total of four and injured dozens, were just the most egregious of the thousands of hate crimes recorded across the bloc in 2022. In the latter attack, the perpetrator had a history of homophobic rhetoric as well as ties to the far right.
According to Katrin Hugendubel, director of advocacy with ILGA-Europe, there is a clear causal relationship between hate speech and this kind of violence, one “that will not disappear or diminish until policy makers understand that they have to get ahead of the problem.” ILGA-Europe’s disturbing findings on hate crimes are firmly echoed by statistics from several other agencies, including the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights.
While many individual members of the European Parliament have expressed genuine alarm about rising hate crime and the increasing prevalence of anti LGBTQ+ legislation in defiance of European Court of Human Rights rulings, the response of the EU as a whole has been inadequate. Transgressions by member states are typically met with fiery rhetoric that is rarely matched by concrete action. A particularly egregious case is that of Hungary. It took the EU until 2018, when Orban had already been re-elected for a third term, before it finally challenged his rule of law and human rights violations by initiating its Article 7 procedure, a measure that can potentially strip a member state of its voting rights in European Council decisions. However, after more than five years, the process remains in legal limbo, “with the European Council yet to make a concrete recommendation.”
Such prevarication fuels the belief that when it comes to the rights of vulnerable minorities, the EU lacks the political will required to force offending member states into compliance. Foot-dragging on combating bigotry stands in stark contrast to the EU’s swift response when what it perceives to be its vital interests are at stake. For example, when Hungry attempted to block a renewed EU aid package to Ukraine earlier this year, harsh rhetoric from Brussels was accompanied by an effective mixture of economic threats and inducements that quickly brought a recalcitrant Orban back into line.
As once unimaginable attacks on Europe’s LGBTQ+ communities increasingly become the norm across the bloc, trust in the EU’s ability to enforce its citizens’ legally protected human rights has never been lower. If the bloc is to regain any semblance of credibility on this vital issue, mere righteous indignation at growing anti LGBTQ+ bigotry can no longer be a substitute for swift and meaningful action.
John Boyce is an Irish freelance journalist with a background in international relations and Hispanic affairs. He writes for a variety of publications on Anglo-Irish, Spanish and European politics.