Hungary will end ministerial veto that effectively blocked gay adoption

Government commits to changing the adoption system

Hungary’s government will change the rules that have effectively prevented gay and lesbian couples from adopting children since 2020, Prime Minister Péter Magyar announced on September 12. He said professional assessments, rather than a minister’s political approval, should determine whether an adoption serves a child’s interests. The government has not yet published legislative text or an implementation timetable.

Before the 2020 change, a person in a same-sex relationship could apply to adopt as an individual, even though Hungary did not recognise same-sex marriage. Legislation enacted under former prime minister Viktor Orbán then required single applicants to obtain approval from the minister responsible for family affairs. In practice, Reuters reported, that additional political gatekeeping amounted to an effective ban for gay and lesbian applicants.

A break with the Orbán era

Magyar defeated Orbán after 16 years in power in Hungary’s April election. Removing the ministerial veto would be one of his government’s clearest actions yet to reverse the former administration’s restrictions on LGBTQ people. Orbán’s governments also stopped legal gender changes in official documents and limited access to material depicting homosexuality or gender transition, presenting those measures as child protection.

The adoption announcement is narrower than a general recognition of family equality. Hungary still does not permit same-sex marriage, although it recognises registered civil partnerships. The promised reform would instead reopen an adoption route by removing the requirement that a politician personally authorise applications from people seeking to adopt outside marriage.

European legal pressure remains

The decision also lands amid continued scrutiny from European institutions. In April, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that Hungary’s restrictions on access to LGBTQ-related content breached EU internal-market law, fundamental rights, data-protection rules and the Union’s founding values. That judgment concerned the separate 2021 content law rather than the adoption procedure, but it established the broader legal conflict surrounding Orbán-era LGBTQ policy.

The next test is whether the government submits a bill and how it defines professional control of adoption decisions. Details will matter: removing ministerial approval could eliminate the principal political barrier without automatically granting identical treatment to married same-sex couples, because Hungary does not recognise such marriages. Parliament’s timetable, the criteria given to child-welfare professionals and the reaction of conservative opposition parties will show how far Magyar intends the reform to reach.