According to the organisation, as in previous years, three counter-demonstrations under the slogan “Protest against LGBTQP propaganda” were registered with the police. The “P” reportedly stands for “pedophilia.” However, the police restricted their routes in order to prevent any overlap with the Pride march. The applications were reportedly submitted by private individuals with links to the far-right party Mi Hazánk. According to Eszter Polgári, counter-demonstrations against the Pride march are not unusual, but they remain significantly outnumbered by Pride participants. It is expected that the police will separate the counter-demonstrators from the Pride march, as in previous years, and prevent any physical contact. Overall, the organisation assumes that the event will take place under similar security conditions as in previous years, as the police have consistently secured the Pride march professionally and there are no indications of an increased security risk.

“We believe that the Pride will be as safe as in previous years (even last year when it was a banned event, the police in an exemplary way secured it and kettled the counterdemonstrators). Nothing indicates that the security risks are more serious this year.”

With regard to the previous ban on Pride, the Háttér Society refers to a reform proposal by several civil society organisations. Among others, the Háttér Society and Amnesty International Hungary call on the government to repeal the legal provisions that have so far served as the basis for banning Pride events. At the centre of this is Section 13/A of the Hungarian Assembly Act, which was introduced with reference to the explicitly homophobic “Child Protection Law” and served as the legal basis for police bans on Pride demonstrations. The organisations also call for the repeal of the legal basis allowing the use of automated facial recognition in connection with Pride events. Instead, they argue, a public debate should be held on the conditions under which such technologies are justified. The so-called “Child Protection Law” was declared incompatible with EU law in April 2026 by a ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union. This incompatibility with EU law provides an additional argument for repealing the relevant amendments to the Assembly Act.

According to Eszter Polgári, the situation for civil society organisations such as the Háttér Society has significantly improved since the change of government. She stated that state-led campaigns against sexual and gender minorities, as well as against civil society organisations, have been discontinued.

„The change of government has significantly improved the situation of Háttér Society and civil society in general. There is no more scapegoating against sexual and gender minorities and those protecting their rights and work for their wellbeing, CSOs critical of the government are not vilified and the Sovereignty Protection Office that was at the forefront of the attacks on CSOs and free press will be abolished next week.”

Sources: hatter.hu, orf.at
Photo: Budapestpride.hu

Budapest. At the opening of the Budapest Global Dialogue 2026, Balázs Orbán, political director to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, sketched a stark diagnosis of European politics: a widening divide between political elites and ordinary citizens. Speaking at the panel “Restoring Civilisational Self Confidence: Which Values Secure Our Future?”, Orbán argued that the foundations of democratic decision making in Europe were being reshaped not only by institutions, but by algorithms.

According to Orbán, global technology platforms now exert decisive influence over the political information citizens encounter. Social media algorithms, he said, no longer merely distribute content but actively shape political reality. If these systems are not neutral, they can reconfigure an entire country’s political environment. In that sense, the issue transcends free speech and becomes one of democratic integrity and national sovereignty.

The conference, held in Budapest and co-organised by the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs and India’s Observer Research Foundation, provided a familiar but sharpened stage for this argument. Orbán acknowledged that Hungary, due to its size and the limited global reach of the Hungarian language, could not realistically build its own social media ecosystem. The task, he argued, was therefore to enforce fair and neutral operating conditions on international platforms. Ensuring such conditions, he said, was essential if democratic choices were to remain genuinely free. This, in his words, was a challenge Europe and its member states would have to confront within the next decade.

From digital power, Orbán moved to electoral politics. Elections, he insisted, remained the decisive corrective mechanism, and Europe needed political change. The current liberal leadership, he argued, should be replaced by 2029. Without such a shift, Europe risked being drawn into a full scale war. The warning was deliberately blunt and consistent with Budapest’s long standing narrative positioning itself as a reluctant dissenter within the European mainstream.

On the war in Ukraine, Orbán contrasted what he described as a pro peace approach in Washington with what he portrayed as Brussels’ interest in prolonging the conflict. “Peace is Europe’s fundamental interest,” he said, framing the continuation of the war not as a moral imperative but as a strategic failure that increasingly runs against the continent’s own security and economic stability.

Orbán placed these arguments in a broader ideological context. The era of neoliberal globalism, he declared, was over; what followed was “the age of nations”. States that wished to remain successful would prioritize sovereignty, security and energy independence. The formulation echoed a core tenet of the Hungarian government’s worldview, in which globalisation is treated less as an economic process than as a political constraint imposed from outside.

The panel reflected this transatlantic and ideological mix. Alongside Orbán sat Sohrab Ahmari, US editor of UnHerd, Paul Coleman, executive director of ADF International, and Sarah B. Rogers, US Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Their presence underscored the conference’s ambition to frame cultural, political and geopolitical questions as elements of a single civilisational debate.

What emerged in Budapest was not a new position, but a more concentrated version of Hungary’s critique of the European status quo. Digital platforms were cast as quasi sovereign actors, Brussels as strategically misguided, and elections as the remaining lever for systemic change. Whether this narrative convinces beyond Hungary’s political allies remains open. What is clear is that Budapest continues to present itself as a diagnostic voice in Europe’s internal crisis and as an advocate of a future defined less by integration than by national self assertion.

Sources: MTI, Wikipedia, Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, Observer Research Foundation
Photo: MTI/Boglárka Bodnár