Europe’s cultural battles are increasingly decided by unaccountable judges in Luxembourg’s Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), rather than elected national parliaments—a trend condemned at the “Courts at the Forefront of Europe’s Value Conflicts” conference held February 27, 2026, at Budapest’s Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC).
Speakers highlighted how the CJEU advances a liberal-progressive agenda on gender identity, same-sex marriage, media regulation, and freedom of expression, undermining national sovereignty and traditional values. Martin Mendelski, researcher at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, described it as a clash between a legal-secular, progressive worldview and a Christian-traditional-national one, emphasizing conflicts over sovereignty and morality.
András Osztovits, professor at Károli Gáspár University, noted EU leaders like CJEU President Koen Lenaerts push for deeper political integration through activism. András Tóth, president of the Central European Lawyers Initiative, traced the shift to 2014 under Jean-Claude Juncker, when institutions began using legal rulings to impose progressive ideas, bypassing political debate.
Rodrigo Ballester, head of MCC’s Centre for European Studies, cited CJEU expansions like mandating cross-border recognition of same-sex families and gender-neutral language, exceeding EU competences. He flagged an upcoming ruling on Hungary’s 2021 child protection law, where Advocate General Tamara Ćapeta’s preliminary opinion claims restricting pro-LGBT content for minors violates “EU values.”
Hungary’s EU Affairs Minister János Bóka criticized the CJEU for acting as a federal constitutional court, engaging in “social engineering” on Europe’s future—decisions that belong in political arenas, not courts. This judicial activism exemplifies EU elites’ assault on national traditions, forcing woke ideology that erodes family values and cultural heritage.
Discussion about this post