After Orbán: Liberal Authoritarianism

With precise timing — just as the incoming government in Hungary would begin negotiations for releasing withheld transfer funds in the billions — the European Court of Justice has ruled that Hungary’s laws relating to LGBTQ issues and minors violate European values.

The laws in question require that sex education be delivered in schools by accredited teachers, not by activists. They forbid the promotion of sex-change surgeries to minors and the promotion of nontraditional sexual identities.

You might be thinking, per Article 5 of the Lisbon treaty, that these are obviously matters that are reserved for national governments, not the EU.

But the court has ruled that the laws effectively trespass on the common market, because they involve restrictions on the provision and consumption of services. Of course, it also condemned the laws in moral terms, saying that they are “contrary to the very identity of the Union as a common legal order in a society in which pluralism prevails.” That last bit is what’s hilarious. Actual pluralism of values can’t be reflected in the law. Instead, a uniform commitment to one set of values deemed pluralistic is acceptable.

Perhaps the EU thinks this is an opportune way to change the law in Hungary, to allow the incoming government to blame the court in Luxembourg. But it is precisely the kind of caving in that will begin splitting up a coalition just built, driving conservatives back to Fidesz.