Populist Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has long used soccer to advance his right-wing politics, and now widespread international criticism of a new law seen as targeting the LGBT community has turned this month’s European Championship into a major stage for his challenge to Europe’s liberal values.
Last week, as more than 60,000 soccer fans poured into Budapest’s Puskas Arena, an emblem of Orban’s famous devotion to soccer, the Hungarian Parliament approved a controversial bill that bans sharing with minors any content portraying homosexuality or sex reassignment.
Human rights groups and liberal politicians in Hungary and from around Europe denounced the law as conflating homosexuality with pedophilia and as a draconian effort to push any representation of LGBT people into the shadows. Nearly half of the European Union’s 27 member countries issued a statement calling it a “clear breach of (LGBT people’s) fundamental right to dignity,” and officials are examining whether the legislation contravenes EU law.
In a direct rebuke to the law, Munich’s mayor and city council called for its stadium to be lit up with rainbow colors in a show of support for tolerance and gay rights when Germany plays Hungary on Wednesday at Euro 2020.
The controversy has turned the game into a symbolic showdown between competing visions for the future of Europe, pitting Orban’s promotion of what he calls “illiberal democracy” against Western Europe’s “liberal consensus.”
UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, said that while it understood the city’s intention to send a message to promote inclusion, it denied the request because it considered it a political move. Other stadiums in Germany unaffiliated with the tournament will be allowed such displays and the team captain will wear a rainbow armband.
European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas slammed the UEFA decision, saying yesterday he can’t find “any reasonable excuse” for UEFA to reject Munich’s plans.
Orban has been challenging the European consensus ever since he returned to power in 2010: frequently criticizing multiculturalism, curtailing media freedoms, and relentlessly campaigning against the EU itself, portraying Brussels as a modern heir to Soviet Moscow, which dominated Hungary for decades.
His message resonates with many Hungarians who resent interference and perceived condescension from the EU — and he has frequently shown himself adept at maneuvering around its policies, such as when he went out on his own to make Hungary the first EU country to procure Russian and Chinese COVID-19 vaccines not approved by European regulators.
The move — which has led Hungary to have the second-highest rate of vaccination in the EU — offered validation for his strategy of bucking the bloc’s dictates, both increasing his power at home and challenging the EU’s credibility and liberal values. Justin Spike, Budapest, MDT/AP
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