Did European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen say that Hungarian European Union funds remain frozen because Hungary is against illegal migration and gender propaganda? No, that's not true: The video making this claim is edited and mistranslated to suggest that the EU's measures were a consequence exclusively of Hungary's approach to migration and LGBTQ rights. In fact the Commission is concerned about many other issues, including breaches of the rule of law, academic freedom and public procurement.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) published by Szilveszter Szarvas, a right-wing pundit and member of the Megafon Center, an agency that partners with social media influencers supporting Hungary's current government. On January 17, 2024, he published the video titled "The Union continues to block Hungarian funds! The reason slipped out their mouth! Are you surprised?" It opened (translated from Hungarian to English by Lead Stories staff):
This is the sad truth. The President of the European Commission clearly said that Hungary is not given its European Union funds as they say no to illegal migration and gender propaganda.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Jan 23 16:31:35 2024 UTC)
The video uses an edited clip from von der Leyen's speech at the European Parliament Plenary on January 17, 2024. She listed concerns about LGBTQI rights, academic freedom and asylum rights as reasons for the Commission to freeze the funds. The creator of the video on TikTok edited "academic freedom" out of her speech. This is the original quote: "At the same time, around EUR 20 billion remain frozen. They are suspended for reasons that include concerns on LGBTIQ rights, academic freedom and asylum rights. Some are blocked under the conditionality mechanism. And they will remain blocked until Hungary fulfils all the necessary conditions." The video of the whole speech is available on the European Commission's website (archived here). It is clear that the video on TikTok uses a cutaway of members of the European Parliament listening to the speech to replace the words "academic freedom."
Von der Leyen's speech is subtitled in Hungarian in the video on TikTok. The translation is generally misleading. It does not include the words "for reasons that include," so it creates the impression that she is exclusively talking about LGBTQI and asylum rights. "Asylum rights" are translated as "migrant rights" (migráns jogok in Hungarian) and "until Hungary fulfills all the necessary conditions" is translated to "until Hungary implements our conditions" (amíg Magyarország végre nem hajtja a feltételeinket).
The Commission did unfreeze around 10 billion euros ($10.8 billion) for Hungary in December 2023 after a successful judicial reform. Still, about 20 billion more remained frozen (archived here) due to "breaches of the principles of the rule of law in Hungary. These breaches related to public procurement, prosecutorial action, conflict of interest, and the fight against corruption."
