In Europe, June Pride continues under patchwork of rights for LGBTQ+ people – with one exception.

Author: Devin Windelspecht, MSc

June 13, 2025

HRRC calls for Hungarian authorities to permit this year's annual Budapest Pride march to take place, and for the European Union (EU) to take all necessary steps to investigate Hungary’s violation of the right to assembly.

People march holding a banner that reads "Do you know who you love? Whoever you want!" march during a gay pride parade in Budapest, Hungary, July 24, 2021. [Image credit: AP via VOA News]

As thousands marched for World Pride Day on June 5 in support of LGBTQ+ rights across Europe, protections and rights for LGBTQ+ people continue to lag behind in countries such as Romania, Poland and Hungary. 

In Bucharest, Romania, a record number of nearly 30,000 people came to the streets to support visibility of the LGBTQ+ community in the country, while in Poland, marches were held in Gdansk and Wrocław, with another march planned in Warsaw on June 14. The countries rank first and second lowest, respectively, among European countries for LGBTQ+ rights, according to the advocacy group IGLA-Europe, which cites hate speech against LGBTQ+ people, bias-motivated violence, and attempts to censor discussions around LGBTQ+ identity in schools. 

Legal marriage or civil partnership remains prohibited to same-sex couples in Romania and Poland. In Romania, which decriminalized homosexuality only in 2001 – decades after most of Europe – efforts to bring a same-sex union law to a vote have stalled, despite a 2023 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that the government was infringing on the rights of same-sex couples. 

In Poland, a civil partnership bill was proposed in 2024 by the country’s then-recently elected centrist government, but failed to move forward under likely veto from the country’s president. However, the recent election of right-wing Polish President Karol Nawrocki, who is expected to veto any law recognizing same-sex couples, has pushed the prospect of civil partnership back at least five years – the length of a Polish presidential term. 

While rights for LGBTQ+ people continue to lag behind in Poland and Romania, as well as Slovakia, Lithuania and Bulgaria – which also do not currently recognize same-sex unions – and Italy, which last year passed a restrictive surrogacy law that effectively prevented same-sex couples from having children, none have taken the step to ban the annual Pride marches, unlike in Hungary. 

This year, a constitutional amendment put into effect in April effectively banned the right for LGBT+ people to publicly assemble in Hungary, and would even permit facial recognition cameras to identify those who attend LGBTQ+ marches. The law was recently cited by Hungarian police as reason to ban Budapest’s annual Pride march, set to take place on June 28 and would be celebrating its 30th anniversary. 

The Pride march ban takes place after years of LGBTQ+ rights being rolled back in the country. In 2021, for example, content depicting LGBTQ+ people was banned from schools and primetime T.V. under a “child protection law,” which mirrors a similar “gay propaganda” law in Russia used to censor discussions of LGBTQ+ identity in public settings.

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Glossary 

• Advocacy group - an organisation that specifically promotes a specific cause or issue.

• Bias - conscious or unconscious prejudice against a given group of people.

• Centrist – falling neither on the right or left of the political spectrum. Centrist governments, as in France and Poland, often include both politicians who identify on the center-right and center-left.

• Censor – to suppress or remove information seen as undesirable.

• Civil partnership – a legal arrangement in which two people are afforded legal rights for living together, but are not necessarily considered married. Used in some countries that do not permit same-sex marriage to provide same-sex couples legal rights.

• Constitutional amendment - a permanent addition to a country’s constitution, which can normally only be changed with large percentages of a legislature (usually ⅔ majority). 

• Curtailed – limited or rolled back. 

• Decriminalized – to stop treating an action as a criminal offense subject to arrest or a fine, but not necessarily make it legal.

• European Union (EU) – an international organization of 27 countries in Europe that share free movement across borders, a common currency, and many shared laws. 

• Hate speech – intolerant speech that expresses hate and/or encourages violence to a given group .

• Infringe – actively deny the rights of

• Patchwork – referring to different sets of rights and laws applied to people in different countries

• Pride – Annual celebrations for LGBTQ+ rights and visibility, usually taking place in June

• Primetime T.V. – T.V. that falls between the normal time that most children and adults will be watching it, usually between 8 P.M. and 10 or 11 P.M. 

• Right to assembly – a right guaranteed by many democratic constitutions, including the U.S. and European countries, to be able to come together peacefully, including to demonstrate or protest. 

• LGBTQ+ people – lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and other gender and sexual identities that do not identify as heterosexual (attracted to the opposite sex) or cisgender (identifying with the gender assigned at birth), and are often discriminated against. 

• Same-sex – partners that both identify as the same gender

• Surrogacy – the practice of having a woman consensually carry another person’s child to term, often used by same-sex couples or couples who could not reproduce normally on their own. 

• Veto – a procedure, usually wielded by a president, that allows the president to override a law passed by the country’s legislature.