An EU Rogue May Pay for Weaponizing Gay Rights

From Bloomberg News

A fight that started over a book of modernized fairy tales has morphed into a defining test for the European Union.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban is intensifying an assault against Hungary’s LGBTQ community. As Veronika Gulyas, Flavia Krause-Jackson and Zoltan Simon report, that could prompt the bloc to shut the taps on financial aid that has fueled the country’s economic transformation for almost two decades.

The European Commission is threatening legal action over a Hungarian law banning minors from being exposed to content portraying homosexuality or sex reassignment that originated with a dispute over a children’s book depicting gay and transgender characters.

The issue cuts to the quick of a dilemma that has plagued the bloc for more than a decade: Why should its 27 countries continue to financially prop up members whose leaders flout EU values on inclusion, democracy and the rule of law?

For Orban, the ringleader of Europe’s populist movement since he returned to power in 2010, it’s political.

Last decade, he scored election victories by demonizing Muslim immigrants and he whipped up sentiment against the Roma minority before the pandemic broke out. As he tightened his grip over Hungary, he teased out a net $29 billion of EU money in the last seven years alone, a model that Poland’s right-wing, anti-LGBTQ government is also pursuing.

Now facing a tough challenge in next year’s elections, Orban is portraying the gay community as the enemy and will hold a referendum on LGBTQ questions to push back against the EU.

But after years of shirking from a fight as it wrangled with problems from the Greek crisis to Brexit, the EU has finally come to the realization it has an antagonist who must be confronted. — Michael Winfrey

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2021-07-23/an-eu-rogue-may-pay-for-weaponizing-gay-rights