FORMER TAOISEACH LEO Varadkar is speaking at a conference about LGBTQ+ rights in Hungary next week while the country’s anti-LGBTQ+ government tries to prevent Pride celebrations.

The former Fine Gael politician, who left Irish politics last year, will speak on a panel about the future of Europe in relation to LGBTQ+ rights at the International Human Rights Conference in Budapest.

It comes as the city’s mayor and LGBTQ+ community plan to go ahead with celebrating Pride despite the government and police seeking to ban it.

Varadkar said he was “honoured” to accept the invitation to speak at their conference.

“I am making the journey in order to show solidarity with the LGBT+ community in Hungary,” he said.

“Free speech and freedom of expression are European values and Hungarians are European citizens, just like us.” 

Hungary has some of the most repressive laws in Europe at the moment with regard to the LGBTQ+ community.

Under conservative prime minister Viktor Orbán, who has been in power since 1998 other than an eight-year gap in the 2000s, the Hungarian government has introduced laws targeting LGBTQ+ rights.

In March, it passed legislation that restricts freedom of assembly, effectively giving it the power to ban LGBTQ+ Pride marches and penalise anyone who participates them.

“If a Pride march can be banned from the streets this year, it could be students, women, political parties, trade unions next year,” Varadkar said.

If Hungary, an EU member state, can do this, so might others.

“This is not just about Pride, we’re just on the front line. It’s about defending democracy, liberty and human rights for everyone,” he said.

“Freedom is never free. The price is eternal vigilance. Rights won must always be defended.”

In Budapest, police have sought to quash Pride plans for next weekend, but the city’s left-wing mayor has said that celebrations will go ahead.

“Budapest city hall will organise the Budapest Pride march as a local event on 28 June, Period,” mayor Gergely Karacsony said.

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Varadkar will speak at the International Human Rights Conference two days before the contentious Pride, which is the thirtieth anniversary of Budapest’s first Pride in 1995.

Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman has said that he plans to attend the Budapest Pride next Saturday, as well as dozens of MEPs from multiple countries to show solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community in Hungary.

In 2021, Hungary’s parliament passed a bill that effectively banned communicating with children and teenagers about sexual orientations and gender identities, both in media like movies or books and in educational settings.

EU Court of Justice Advocate General Tamara Ćapeta recently issued a formal legal opinion to the court outlining that by banning content about LGBTQ+ sexualities and gender identities from being available to under-18s, Hungary is infringing on the treaty that sets out the EU’s fundamental principles of human dignity and equality.

She said the legislation also infringed on the freedom enshrined in EU law to provide and receive services.  

Additionally, she said that Hungary has “significantly deviated from the model of a constitutional democracy”.