Hungary is violating European Union law by cracking down on LGBTQ+ content children might be exposed to, a top adviser at the European Union’s highest court said on Thursday. The legal opinion comes ahead of a final ruling by the Court of Justice of the EU that could force Viktor Orbán’s government to scrap one of its most controversial laws — a 2021 law restricting and banning the representation and “promotion” of homosexuality and gender transition across all media accessible to children. Hungary “has significantly deviated from the model of a constitutional democracy,” the court’s Advocate General Tamara Ćapeta found, according to a press release. Budapest’s rules “are based on a value judgment that homosexual and non-cisgender life is not of equal value or status as heterosexual and cisgender life,” the press release added. The opinion gives the European Commission clout in its clash with Budapest over fundamental rights, which most recently escalated after Orbán’s government banned Pride events in mid-March and authorized police to use biometric cameras to identify organizers and attendees. Advocate-general opinions are nonbinding. However, they do often signal where the court will land in its final ruling, which usually comes out within months following the opinion. The European Commission opened an infringement procedure in July 2021 after Hungary adopted the law, which seeks to bar children from seeing LGBTQ+ content across television programs and advertisements, books, sex education classes and beyond. Same-sex couples and transgender people are banned from daytime TV and ads, while queer-themed books must be sealed and can’t be sold near schools and churches. Budapest invoked the EU’s audiovisual media rulebook and its provisions on protecting minors from harmful content as a legal basis to limit the visibility of LGBTQ+ communities on television. “The Hungarian bill is a shame,” Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in 2021, vowing to use “all the powers of the Commission to ensure that the rights of all EU citizens are guaranteed, whoever you are and wherever you live.” In December 2022, the EU executive took the case to court and got the backing of 15 member countries and the European Parliament. The Hungarian provisions infringe a series of EU laws and interfere with fundamental rights, Ćapeta said Thursday, arguing the infringement procedure is “founded.” If the court confirmed that the 2021 provisions are unlawful, Hungary could face a hefty fine and be forced to roll them back. In its latest move against LGBTQ+ rights, Hungary’s parliament passed a law in March banning Pride events and authorized police to use biometric surveillance to identify organizers and attendees. These measures are under EU scrutiny for potentially breaching new artificial intelligence rules that prohibit real-time facial recognition. The European Commission and the Hungarian government have not yet responded to a request for comment about Thursday’s court opinion. The case is C-769/22.

BRUSSELS — The European Parliament is bracing for cuts within the institution’s sprawling communications department as some staffers now fear their jobs are in danger. The Parliament has for years contained one of the biggest communications departments in Brussels, essentially acting as the body’s in-house public relations agency. But the years of abundance — and an annual budget that reached €127 million in 2025 — appear to be coming to an end as the institution reallocates resources to focus on what Parliament leaders perceive as their central mission: legislating and democratic oversight. “It is known they want to cut. That is a fact,” said one Parliament official, who, like others in this story, spoke on condition of anonymity to freely discuss internal matters. “There are people scared for their jobs.” Alessandro Chiocchetti, the Parliament’s secretary-general, a powerful post overseeing the institution’s expansive bureaucracy, has vowed to reallocate the institution’s resources to what he considers core parliamentary work since beginning his mandate in 2023. One of his measures has been to create four new departments to help MEPs draft legislation, requiring new personnel and resources. But because the Parliament’s annual budget of around €2 billion, despite adjustments for inflation, is fixed, other departments need to be trimmed in order to find the funds. Delphine Colard, a Parliament spokesperson, confirmed to POLITICO that Director General for Communication Christian Mangold is working with Chiocchetti to “review” his department’s activities. With a plan to restructure the communications department expected to come by the summer recess, many staff members say they are unnerved by the uncertainty. “The process is not transparent,” said a second Parliament staffer, speaking to POLITICO. Another said the situation has caused “a morale issue” in the department’s ranks. The directorate general for communications had 761 staff members in 2022, according to data from its annual report. “They’re looking at the overall numbers and they’re saying, oh, it’s a big directorate general, so it needs to be trimmed,” said one of the officials, referring to the communications department. Another official, however, cautioned the restructuring will likely not be a “major reform” but rather a “readjustment” of resources. WHAT’S ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK The Parliament’s leadership intends to gradually reassign existing staff members to jobs in other departments or to reallocate posts after employees retire. Less clear is what happens with subcontracted temporary positions — so-called externals — who often work in areas such as audiovisual services, website maintenance and event organization. Specifically, the administration is considering withdrawing funding for events such as the Brussels 20-kilometer race. | Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu via Getty Images At first, senior leadership planned to discontinue up to 50 percent of external contracts, according to the minutes of an internal meeting seen by POLITICO. But those cuts are likely to be less drastic, according to one of the three officials. (Colard refused to provide the number of externals currently employed in the communications department.) Overall, the Parliament’s outreach and campaign activities are likely to be most affected. Specifically, the administration is considering withdrawing funding for events such as the Brussels 20-kilometer race, grants for organizations at the regional and local level, and art exhibitions, according to a draft plan seen by POLITICO. It may also slash part of its budget for awards, according to the three Parliament officials, including the LUX Audience Award for films, the European Citizen’s Prize and the European Charlemagne Youth Prize for youth projects promoting democracy. The Europa Experience initiative, a project to establish EU-themed spaces across all 27 member countries, has already suffered cuts because of soaring costs and lackluster visitor numbers. The uncertainty has caused some staffers to look elsewhere to build their careers, especially in the newly created legislative directorates, according to two of the officials POLITICO spoke to. “The feeling now is that the future is in the new directorates if you want to grow professionally,” one of them said.

CANNES, France — Every evening a crowd of fans and photographers flock around the red carpet of the most prestigious movie festival on the planet, where stars like Angelina Jolie, Tom Cruise and Sean Penn show up on their way to premiere screenings. But in the rest of the town, another American is on everyone’s lips: U.S. President Donald Trump. While in the dark of movie theaters, films from all over the world are competing to win the prestigious Palme d’Or, the movie industry’s producers and distributors, as well as politicians and lobbyists, will be getting together in the French Riviera to seal deals and check the temperature of the cinema sector.  During their meetings, whether in hotel suites, dedicated waterfront stands or cafés, there is a moment in the conversation when Trump and his crusade against non-U.S. cinema inevitably come up. In early May, the U.S. president threatened to drag the movie industry into his trade war against the rest of the world by slapping tariffs on “foreign” movies. What worries Europe’s industry even more is that the Trump administration has also waged war against EU rules that allow national governments to force streaming platforms, often American, to invest in European productions. With these two swords of Damocles hanging over their heads, the European movie industry players gathered in Cannes hope that Brussels will stand up to Trump’s threats. “The atmosphere is a lot more political, even geopolitical, than before,” said French director Pierre Jolivet, drinking a Coke with POLITICO in a local bar.  And Cannes already has a long political track record. The Cannes kermesse was born as a political move in 1939, a reaction to the takeover of Venice’s festival by Nazis and fascists. It became the theater of confrontation in May 1968 with nouvelle vague directors like François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard on the frontline. While no longer quite as spectacular, the festival remains a forum where artists stand up to power. This year has been no exception, with Robert De Niro attacking Trump and U.S. director Richard Linklater calling the U.S. president’s idea of applying tariffs to foreign-made movies “dumb.”  “We have understood that the U.S. has become an enemy, politically and culturally,” said Jolivet, who is also president of ARP, an influential association of French directors, producers and screenwriters. ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD  Industry insiders admit that it’s too early to say whether Trump’s tariff threat is just a bluff, and stress that such duties are likely illegal and would be difficult to enforce. But they also realize that the menacing tactics are sparking uncertainty in the sector. And some side effects are already showing.  One French movie producer here, granted anonymity to speak about private business negotiations, said a U.S. distributor had paused ongoing talks on distribution of a non-American movie in the U.S., citing the need for more clarity on the Trump administration’s next move before signing the deal.  Others are worried that the threatened tariffs would deprive U.S. audiences of movies that don’t fit with Trump’s agenda. “With these tariffs, he would cut off films that are important for immigrants,” said Sunitha Ram, an Indian film producer in Cannes. Trump’s tariff threat is seen as an attempt to discourage movie productions from shooting films outside the U.S. Filming in Los Angeles dropped by 22 percent during the first quarter of this year due to several factors including production costs. But Hollywood heavyweights, some close to Trump, think tax credits would be a better solution to keep more shooting at home. France, the birthplace of cinema, is making no secret of its efforts to attract U.S. and other foreign productions to make movies in France. The government in Paris even organized dedicated meetings in Cannes over the weekend and in Versailles on Monday as part of a “Choose France” program, under which French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to announce €20 billion in new investment in several sectors. FIGHTING FOR THE CULTURAL EXCEPTION  But something else worries the movie industry more than the looming tariffs. The industry fears that in U.S.-Europe trade negotiations, Washington could pressure Brussels to dilute the EU’s audiovisual media services directive, which allow countries like France to require that streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+ and others invest in a minimum quota of local productions. The so-called AVSMD directive is set to be reviewed next year.  “We fear that this directive could be part of tariffs negotiations with the U.S.,” said Juliette Prissard, general delegate of producers’ association Eurocinema, a point echoed by all the producers POLITICO met in Cannes. While the European Commission has so far avoided a frontal attack against Trump on his movie tariffs threats, EU commissioners in Cannes tried to reassure the industry that the AVSMD directive won’t be used as a bargaining chip in trade negotiations with Washington. “The culture sector, in my opinion, should not be part of discussions or disputes in relation to trade,” EU Culture Commissioner Glenn Micallef told POLITICO while sitting on the grass in front of an overcrowded café. “It is of course not our approach to include or by any means have this as part of a negotiation.” Commission Vice President Stéphane Sejourné was even more direct. “At a time when some in the United States are trying to impose a single culture on us, with tariffs on European cinema, we defend keeping European content obligations on all platforms,” he said on Saturday at an event organized by the CNC, the French agency responsible for promoting cinema and co-funding films. “This is non-negotiable,” Sejourné stressed. Over the weekend, French Culture Minister Rachida Dati signed an op-ed with more than 20 of her EU colleagues, calling for “a collective leap forward for a Europe of Culture” in reaction to attacks on freedom and diversity. In a speech at the CNC event, Dati said she would fight to “preserve” the AVSMD directive. But the strong words don’t seem to have reassured the movie industry.  On Sunday afternoon, a group of movie directors organized a rally on the town’s croisette beach where they read a declaration, warning that “the economic war waged by the USA is also a cultural war!” and accusing the European Commission of treating culture like any other economic sector. That “manifesto” has been signed by dozens of cinema industry groups and famous directors like Claude Lelouch and Paolo Sorrentino. “For the European Commission, culture is not a real issue,” said French movie producer Marc Missonnier, who also chairs the French cinema producer union. “The risk is that some stories will disappear and our horizon will be dominated by stories imagined by others,” he said, sitting on a deck chair on the beach at Cannes.

PARIS — France isn’t scared of Donald Trump’s threats to impose duties on foreign movies. Culture Minister Rachida Dati said Wednesday she has nothing to fear from the U.S. president’s threat to impose tariffs on movies produced abroad, and defended France’s long-standing financial support to the film industry. “In the end, the American film industry would be penalized the most, and obviously not ours,” Dati said on Wednesday during a cocktail party at the culture ministry in Paris with actors, directors and producers of French movies selected for the Cannes film festival. “I am not worried,” she said. According to Dati, the United States has little to gain from a trade war in the movie sector as Hollywood successfully exports movies around the world. “[Trump] would expose himself to, quote-unquote, ‘retaliation’,” she explained in an interview with France Inter earlier on Wednesday, downplaying the economic impact on France and noting that U.S. movies only account for 15 percent of total film shooting in the country. In a social media post on Monday, Trump accused foreign countries of trying to lure U.S. productions by offering incentives and called it a “national security threat.” France has historically financially supported its cinema and cultural sector, also as a way to challenge U.S. hegemony. “Our model has been under attack since its beginnings precisely because it is effective,” Dati told the French movie industry figures gathered for the occasion. Culture Minister Rachida Dati said she has nothing to fear from the U.S. president’s threat to impose tariffs on movies produced abroad. | Mohammed Badra/EPA “In France, we’ve never questioned our vision of cinema. A vision that considers it an art that must escape the pure laws of the market,” she explained, noting that the U.S. “has always been hostile” to that concept. Trump’s tariffs threat promises to be one of the hot topics of discussion at Cannes, which kicks off next week. Of the 107 movies selected for the festival, French financial aid has gone to 43, of which 15 are foreign movies, according to the culture ministry.

Europe’s moviemakers are bracing to be the next industry embroiled in Donald Trump’s trade war. The U.S. president pledged Sunday to slap a 100 percent “tariff” on movies “produced in Foreign Lands,” after governments worldwide have enticed production teams with lucrative tax breaks and lower labor costs. “WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!” Trump said in a Truth Social post, claiming to have instructed the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Trade Representative to crack down on this “National Security threat” and “propaganda.” The administration has yet to explain how the tariff would work or what it would exactly target. “Commerce is figuring it out,” said a White House official, granted anonymity to share details about the internal process. “Maybe like, the rights to movies or something,” adding that a study will be launched. Experts in the U.S. have pointed out that movies are exempt from tariff orders, per the so-called Berman Amendment from 1988. Across the Atlantic, confusion — if not surprise — reigned.  “We felt that [cinema] could become a battlefield [amid the trade war]. We’re entering the unpredictable,” Pascal Rogard, the president of the French authors’ society SACD, said. “This is contrary to international commitments,” he added. Although the criteria on what constitutes a “foreign” production remain unclear and contentious, “the political gesture is in line with what we expected to happen,” a French industry insider who, like others contacted by POLITICO for this story, was granted anonymity to speak freely amid the uncertainty surrounding Trump’s plan. “Everyone’s trying to make sense of what it means, or what it might mean,” said another. Others slammed the damage the move could do to the sector. “Ousting the European film industry from the U.S. market is a harmful move toward cultural essentialism,” said Nela Riehl, a German lawmaker from the Greens chairing the European Parliament’s culture committee. “Protectionism in this sector will only encourage other regions to retaliate, like we have seen it from China already,” she warned. Laurence Farreng, a member of the European Parliament from French President Emmanuel Macron’s party, said “imposing duties will penalize American industry in the end.” A group of EU lawmakers from the Parliament’s culture committee will visit Los Angeles at the end of May to meet U.S. movie producers, she said. According to Trump, the tariffs are to stop Hollywood from dying a “very fast death.” Los Angeles has seen feature movie shoot days plummet — from 3,901 in 2017 to just 2,403 in 2024, a 38 percent drop highlighting its dwindling role on the global scene. Trump’s bombshell memo in February already slammed EU media rules that “require American streaming services to fund local productions,” in a clear reference to the bloc’s audiovisual media services directive allowing national governments to force Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+ and others to invest in European works. Whatever form it takes, the new tariff might be added to the list of bargaining chips in the unfolding trade standoff between Washington and Brussels. As the Cannes Film Festival kicks off in France next week, the controversial move is likely to take center stage, with French moviemakers from the association ARP preparing to speak out. “I will be present at Cannes and I believe that this subject will keep the producers very busy. It’ll be very interesting to hear whether they can do without a market like the European one, and no doubt they’ll get things moving, just as manufacturers in other American sectors have done,” Farreng said. “For now, this is just an announcement by Trump,” Riehl said. “The EU is already working toward more opportunities and visibility for European film in Europe and globally. This approach of ‘more Europe’ will now be the way to go.”

BRUSSELS — The European Union should dedicate more money to a key culture program that is vital to the bloc’s security, said new Culture Commissioner Glenn Micallef. In an exclusive first interview with POLITICO, the youngest commissioner among the new crop of 26 said the Creative Europe program, a €2.4 billion initiative to support Europe’s creative and audiovisual industries, should be expanded in the EU’s next seven-year budget. Talks on the budget, which will run from 2028 to 2034, are heating up, with calls to spend more money on defense and to bolster the bloc’s waning competitiveness. But culture funding should not be overlooked, Micallef argues. “Culture is part and parcel of our work on democracy and our work on strengthening the Union, including our security in Europe,” he said. “This is a program that needs to be strengthened and I will continue to make the case for that.” Micallef cited Ukraine, arguing that Russia is attacking its cultural and heritage sites in an attempt to destabilize the country as a whole. “If you want to destroy a nation, if you want to completely erase a country, you attack its culture.” Micallef visited Ukraine earlier this month for a meeting on how to protect Ukraine’s heritage during Russia’s ongoing invasion. “The night before we crossed the border into Ukraine, a UNESCO world heritage site was destroyed in Odesa, specifically targeted by the Russians,” Micallef said. Attacks on cultural institutions and artists are happening in EU countries too, Micallef noted, flagging examples in Slovakia, Bulgaria and Portugal. He refrained from discussing the state of play in any of those countries but said the European Commission could weigh in if needed — also through its annual rule-of-law reports. “I want to focus on promoting this value of artistic freedom and artistic expression, and we will defend it, of course, wherever there are attacks,” he said.

BRUSSELS — The European Union’s new social media rules are being tested to the limit by allegations of an orchestrated TikTok campaign to rig Romania’s presidential election. Ultranationalist Călin Georgescu’s shock win in the first round of the Romanian election put pressure on the European Commission to show that it can use its new powers to clamp down on online content to look at how Georgescu’s social media account got a vital last-minute boost. Regulators can now fine companies up to 6 percent of their global annual turnover or even temporarily block their services in the EU. Brussels’ response for now? We’re looking into it. The Commission, which oversees TikTok because of the sheer size of the platform, faces the delicate balancing act of proving that its content-moderation rulebook — the Digital Services Act — works while avoiding being accused of jumping to conclusions or interfering with national elections. The Romanian case adds to the EU’s efforts to wrangle X owner, free speech advocate and Donald Trump protégé Elon Musk, who has publicly defied the EU’s social media rules. If Brussels can’t show that it can tackle these key issues, the credibility of the EU’s flagship social media law could crumble — just when lawmakers and NGOs expect the rules to begin to bite. The Commission is “kind of tiptoeing,” said Eliška Pírková, who covers the DSA at campaign group AccessNow. SORE POINT Georgescu’s stunning win quickly saw the Commission facing the heat. Just two days after the election, even as details about Georgescu’s late TikTok surge were still scarce, the Romanian audiovisual regulator asked the Commission to probe the video-sharing app. It alleged that TikTok’s algorithm amplified content that “disproportionally favoured one candidate,” it detailed in a statement shared with POLITICO. This didn’t immediately trigger a probe from the Brussels-based authority. Instead, it expanded an older set of questions to TikTok with new queries about the platform’s system to recommend content to users and the risks of malicious actors exploiting the app. It also called TikTok, Facebook parent Meta, Google, Microsoft and X in for a chat. The Commission’s cautious approach starkly contrasted with fury from European lawmakers about how TikTok handled the election, especially during a hearing with the company’s executives about a week after Georgescu’s win. Ultranationalist Călin Georgescu’s shock win in the first round of the Romanian election put pressure on the European Commission to show that it can use its new powers to clamp down on online content. | Andrei Pungovschi/Getty Images “There’s no ability to intervene quickly in these situations, and the platforms clearly don’t seem to care,” European lawmaker Kim Van Sparrentak from the Greens lashed out. Only minutes later, the Commission’s Rita Wezenbeek, boss of the platforms directorate, said the EU executive had not formed an opinion yet. The ultimate sore point is the speed of DSA enforcement which doesn’t come close to matching the rapid spread of social media. Until now, only one platform, Musk’s X, has been warned that it may breach the EU’s social media law. That is “rather disappointing,” said Pírková, who said that she nevertheless understood the reasons for the slower pace. “The Commission is very cautious, because first of all, the investigation has to have enough evidence, enough data that were collected with sound methodologies,” she said. The EU executive is particularly fearful of being accused of meddling with national elections. Former Commissioner Thierry Breton was accused of interfering with the U.S. elections in August when he reminded Musk of EU requirements to comply with the law ahead of an interview with Donald Trump, now the U.S. president-elect. QUICK FIX The EU’s social media law was also never intended to act as a quick fix for occurrences like the Romanian election. Calls for a probe into TikTok have zoned in one article in the law — Article 34 — mandating that platforms like TikTok assess so-called systemic risks. One systemic risk is the damage that recommender systems, like TikTok’s algorithm, could do to public discourse and elections. But any probe and any finding that TikTok breached the law would do nothing to change the political reality after the Romanian vote. Yet, the current outcry from the Romanian election could pave the way for closer monitoring of future polls. Greens lawmaker Alexandra Geese, who co-negotiated the digital rulebook, said the “Commission should learn from this experience and clearly lay out which interim measures can be taken against platforms during an election.” TikTok has now been ordered to store any data on national elections in the EU until March of next year. This means the order, necessary to pave the way for any future investigation, will be in place when Germany goes to the polls on Feb. 23.

The European Commission has sent TikTok a range of questions related to the platform’s handling of the Romanian elections. “Against the background of the ongoing Romanian elections, the Commission is requesting TikTok to provide more information on its management of the risks of information manipulation,” the Commission wrote today. TikTok will have to detail how it handles the risk of “inauthentic or automated exploitation” of its platform and the risk stemming from its recommender system. Some researchers have alleged that fake accounts or paid influencers were deployed to boost the account of ultranationalist pro-Russian candidate Călin Georgescu, who surged to victory in Sunday’s first round of voting in Romania’s presidential election. Georgescu’s content reached high view counts on the video-sharing app in the campaign’s final stretch. TikTok has repeatedly said it has found no evidence of any covert influence operation. The Commission also wants to know how TikTok gives NGOs and researchers access to the data needed to scrutinize election risks. A group of Romania-based NGOs had asked for more transparency in an open letter. The platform has two weeks to respond to the questions. The deadline falls after the Romanian parliamentary election, taking place this Sunday, and the second round of the presidential elections, scheduled for Dec. 8. Earlier this week, the Romanian audiovisual regulator asked the European Commission to open a probe into TikTok over the election. The current line of questioning doesn’t yet amount to a full-on probe. TikTok must reply, after which the Commission will decide “further steps.” The questions also build further on an earlier set of questions the Commission sent to TikTok in early October about the working of its recommender system. The Commission said it would be in touch with Romanian authorities and platforms through a roundtable hosted today. TikTok spokesperson Paolo Ganino said the company was “committed” to cooperate. “We view it as a helpful step in establishing facts in light of this week’s speculation.”

Ireland is gearing up to flex some muscles and ensure that video-sharing platforms — including Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, ByteDance’s TikTok, Elon Musk’s X and Google’s YouTube — protect their users from hate speech and harmful videos online. The country’s new media and internet regulator, Coimisiún na Meán, on Monday published its long-awaited Online Safety Code, a set of binding rules that will soon apply to the many tech giants whose European headquarters are in Ireland. The 10 designated platforms are Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Udemy, TikTok, LinkedIn, X, Pinterest, Tumblr and Reddit. “The adoption of the Online Safety Code brings an end to the era of social media self-regulation,” Online Safety Commissioner Niamh Hodnett said in a statement. It will also bring Ireland closer to full compliance with the European Union’s audiovisual law, which mandated such new policing and whose sluggish transposition by Dublin resulted in a €2.5 million fine from the EU’s top court in February. Under the new code, which complements the EU’s content-moderation rulebook, platforms will have to ban the uploading and sharing of harmful content, ranging from videos promoting self-harm or eating disorders to inciting terrorism or racism. They will also have to restrict minors’ access to adult content like pornography and gratuitous violence; police commercial content advertising cigarettes or alcohol; and introduce ways for users to report content that breaks the rules. Protecting children online more stringently has become a top priority for policymakers across Europe. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wants to launch a bloc-wide inquiry into the effects of social media on the well-being of young people. Lawmakers in the European Parliament’s internal market committee will work on this topic as part of one of their future reports, while governments are considering a minimum age for using social media or a crackdown on porn sites that don’t keep minors away with blanket blocks. The rulebook “introduces real accountability for online video sharing platforms and requires them to take action to protect those that use their platforms, including by having robust complaints handling procedures and introducing effective age-verification,” Ireland’s Media Minister Catherine Martin said. “It will make all of us, but particularly our children, safer online,” she added. Platforms must comply with the general obligations by Nov. 19, while the more prescriptive rules — those that require platforms to tweak their internal systems — have a July 21, 2025 deadline. In case of noncompliance, they face fines of up to €20 million or 10 percent of their annual turnover, whichever is greater.