Budapest (AFP) – Hungarian lawmakers on Tuesday voted to remove anti-LGBTQ provisions in a 2021 "child protection" law adopted under nationalist ex-leader Viktor Orban.

Parliament passed a bill to amend the law with 139 votes in favour and 51 votes against, marking the first significant reversal of Orban's curbs targeting the LGBTQ community since pro-EU Prime Minister Peter Magyar took power in May. Instead of banning the "portrayal" or "promotion" of sexual and gender diversity in content accessible to children, the new law will simply seek to protect under-18s from material that can "seriously impair the child's physical, intellectual, emotional or moral development".

Magyar won a landslide victory in April elections, ending a 16-year stretch in power for Orban, who had taken one of Europe's most restrictive approaches to LGBTQ rights.

The European Union welcomed Tuesday's vote as an "important signal of commitment for our common values" after Orban's restrictions were found to be in breach of EU rules.

Magyar did not address LGBTQ rights during his election campaign, though he has since struck a friendly tone and indicated willingness to revise some Orban-era policies.

But ahead of the vote on Tuesday, he cast the planned changes not as a restoration of rights but a strengthening of child-protection rules "regardless of sexual orientation".

However, the governing Tisza party has a comfortable two-thirds majority, which enabled it to pass the bill without any opposition support.

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