Europe’s Pride month: victory vs Orban, but 'pinkwashing' and uneven protections remain

A month full of colour draws to a close. It wasn’t so much the sunshine as the celebration of LGBT+ Pride that made it so vibrant.

The annual parades brings a multicoloured crowd to the streets of Europe, committed to fighting for the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, as well as other sexual and gender minorities.

A non-conformist galaxy, parading its diversity, and often reveling in excess, expressed through colour: queer performers in rainbow-themed sequins and feathers, muscular thirty-somethings in black leather and steel-studded bracelets, elderly bankers who have dyed their hair green and pink for the occasion.

The Pride attendance numbers continue to impress. The largest turnouts have been recorded in New York with four million in 2019, São Paulo with four million in 2011 and Madrid with 3.5 million in 2017.

It has been more than 50 years since the parades began rolling through the cities.

It all began with the Stonewall Riots of 28 June 1969 in New York. Following a police raid on a gay bar, riots broke out that led the community to become aware of their rights and make their voices heard. From that point forward, things began to change, and several countries established ad hoc legislation to protect LGBT+ rights. But there is still a long way to go, and sometimes all it takes is crossing a border to find yourself in upside-down land.

Different countries, different mentalities

ILGA Europe  has taken stock of the state of LGBT+ rights across Europe, not just the EU.

For about 15 years now, the Brussels-based organisation has published a report analysing the situation in 49 European states. The 'best' in class is Malta, which scores 88 out of 100 points, and the worst is Russia, with two points.

Belgium, Denmark and Iceland have done very well, while Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan have performed poorly. If we were to draw an imaginary line from the Russian-Finnish border to the Mediterranean via the historic Oder-Neisse line, we would see a continent split in half, with two exceptions: Italy on one side, and Greece on the other.

In other words, legislation in the West is relatively respectful of those whose sexuality “does not conform to the norm”, and in the East, it is inadequate, if not non-existent. The legacy of the Iron Curtain still marks certain borders.

In the words of ILGA Europe, “the Rainbow Map 2025 ... highlights the pressing need to defend and advance these rights in the context of acute democratic erosion”.

Yes, a question of democracy.

As Chaber, executive director of the Brussels-based organisation, puts it: “We are entering a new era where LGBTI people have become the testing ground for laws that erode democracy itself”.

The division in Europe has also been felt during Pride month.

Initially, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen reportedly urged her staff not to attend the banned Pride parade in Hungary. The week before, she had supported the one in Brussels.

“Be proud,” she declared on X, with a video showing the rainbow flag flying alongside the EU flag outside the European Commission building in Brussels. “Proud of whom you love. Proud of who you are. Proud of who you are becoming. Because your journey is your power. Always remember: Europe is your ally. I am your ally. This week and every week. Be proud. Always”.

These diametrically opposed approaches triggered accusations that von der Leyen was all too willing to set aside LGBT+ rights to avoid provoking Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán.

In March, under the pretext of a 2021 law prohibiting the depiction or promotion of homosexuality to under-18s, the Orbán government effectively banned the 28 June Budapest Pride.

According to Manon Aubry, co-chair of The Left group and vocal supporter of the petition to ban sexual conversion practices in the EU, the European Commission “is doing more pinkwashing than taking real action in support of LGBTI+ communities”.

Despite the bans, tensions and political friction, the mayor of Budapest, Gergely Karacsony, assured everyone that Budapest Pride would go ahead. While doing so, he invoked the democratic tradition of his city. Several commissioners, MEPs, mayors and other high-ranking politicians attended the march.

Brussels: genuine commitment or pinkwashing?

But beyond Pride, what do the people think? How do they perceive the role of European institutions? Is enough being done to promote a culture of diversity? What forms of hostility do communities experience on a daily basis? And by what means should these adversities be overcome?

In order to gain a better understanding, OBCT, with the help of the independent media network PULSE, interviewed activists and experts from five EU countries: Austria, Belgium, Greece, Poland, and Spain.

The picture that emerges is ambiguous.

In general, the institutions in Brussels are seen as allies, bodies that go out of their way to recognise the rights of the most vulnerable groups. Dig a little deeper, however, and more than a few doubts emerge.

“The European Union’s policies,” says Óscar Rodríguez Fernández of Spain’s FELGTBI+, have led to "significant progress in the recognition and protection of LGBTI+ people’s rights ... but their actual effectiveness varies greatly from country to country."

He also said that the European Commission has the opportunity to sharpen LGBTIQ+ policies in the short term through a new strategy 2026-2030, expected by the end of the year.

But hostilities remain, and the normalisation of hate speech, especially on social networks and in the media, is one of the main concerns for Rodríguez Fernández.

From Greece, the organisation ORLANDO LGBT complains that “the privileges that the EU can offer are mainly the prerogative of white, heteronormative and cisgender individuals, belonging to the middle or upper-middle class".

They argue that these privileges are not equally available to everyone in Europe, warning that ignoring this gap between the EU’s image and the actual experiences of many people creates conditions where authoritarianism, discrimination, and far-right political movements can grow stronger.

Meanwhile, Fédération Prisme in Liège, Belgium, has some doubts about whether the EU institutions are actually listening to the community.

“Sometimes we feel more ‘recognised’ than genuinely ‘listened to’," they said. "Although institutional recognition exists, it remains somewhat distant and impersonal, characterised by a lack of sustained and direct dialogue ... That being said, some institutions, such as the Court of Justice of the European Union, are vital allies in upholding fundamental rights through high-impact judgments”.

Everyone agrees that to overcome hostility towards LGBT+ communities, the focus has to be on education, but visibility is also crucial, according to Gernot Wartner, general director of HOSI Linz Austria.

“The media are called upon to ensure that their focus on us does not stop with Pride month,” Wartner said.

Ana Somavilla (El Confidencial), Wojciech Karpieszuk (Gazeta Wyborcza), Christian Schneider (Der Standard), and Dimitris Angelidis (EfSyn) contributed to the production of this story.

This article is part of the PULSE collaborative project. The original article was published by OBC Transeuropa