The mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, attended the Budapest Pride march on June 28, which, with unprecedented participation, celebrated its 30th anniversary this year and had been banned by the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Alongside the mayor of Amsterdam, Femke Halsema, the mayor of Athens, Haris Doukas, and other representatives of European institutions, Collboni supported the municipal government led by Gergely Karácsony in defending fundamental rights, democracy, and European values.

“European cities are the true bastions of resistance against this reactionary wave sweeping across Europe, whose greatest exponent is the Orbán government, which dares to ban a demonstration in a territory like Hungary, which belongs to the European Union and therefore has all freedoms and fundamental rights guaranteed,” said the mayor of Barcelona from Budapest City Hall.

Invited by the city’s mayor, Collboni stated that his presence in the Hungarian capital “is not only to champion the rights of the LGTBI community, but what we are defending today in Budapest is the right to protest, the respect for rights and freedoms, and above all, respect for democracy”.

For the mayor of Barcelona, “the powerful message that we European mayors are sending today is that what is happening in Budapest, a member country of the European Union, could happen tomorrow in Barcelona, Paris, or Athens.” Therefore, “this is a fight we must take very seriously, and we must do so from local governments, most of which in Europe fortunately belong to progressive political families”.

Accompanied by the Commissioner for European Affairs, Mar Jiménez, Jaume Collboni also held a bilateral meeting with his Budapest counterpart, Gergely Karácsony, at the Hungarian capital’s City Hall to learn first-hand about the municipal government’s position in the face of the country’s regressive policies.

Later, the mayor of Barcelona, who also acted as vice president of the Eurocities network, met with the president of the European Committee of the Regions, Kata Tüttő, and other members of European institutions to strengthen the common front against the authoritarian movement and the regression of freedoms and democratic rights taking place in many European countries and the United States. This stance was also conveyed in the meeting with the mayors of Amsterdam and Athens and other representatives of European cities at Budapest City Hall, shortly before the start of the Pride march.