‘Words are not enough’
Díaz’s colleague, Culture Minister Ernest Urtasun, who also joined the march in Budapest, said Spain’s government is “very, very concerned” about the issue. “It is a duty” of all progressive governments to “stand in the way” when there are attacks against fundamental rights, he added.
Echoing Díaz, Uratsun said the government in Madrid expects “the European Commission to be strong in defending EU law.”
“We would like the European Commission to be much stronger than it has been doing in the last months,” Uratsun said.
The Spanish delegation was joined in Budapest by government representatives from France and the Netherlands, as well as lawmakers from dozens of other countries and mayors from major European capitals.
During a press conference Saturday morning, the chairs of the European Parliament Socialist, Left, Green and liberal groups also urged the Commission to launch a challenge on the law.
“Words are not enough,” said Socialists and Democrats group leader Iratxe García Pérez. “We need action. And action means that the European Commission start the infringement procedure against this law,” García Pérez said.
Civil society organizations are also calling on the European Commission to intervene against Hungary’s potential use of facial recognition technology to identify attendees in the Pride parade. Dozens of digital and human rights groups said Hungary’s use of the technology is “a glaring violation” of the European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act, in an open letter to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her colleagues in charge of technology, rule of law and equality, as first reported by POLITICO.
In a joint declaration at the end of May, 20 member states including Spain, Germany and France stated their concerns regarding Orbán’s crackdown on fundamental rights, and called on the Commission to use all means at its disposal to prevent democratic backsliding in Hungary.
