Hungary's government will ease access to emergency contraception and roll back a controversial abortion rule as part of a broader package of women's rights reforms, Prime Minister Peter Magyar said on Thursday, in a sharp break with the policies of former premier Viktor Orban.

Source: Reuters

"We are proposing a comprehensive package of measures to curb all forms of violence against women, for the safety and dignity of Hungarian women," Magyar said in a video posted on Facebook, announcing the package in his own words.

What is in the package

Women will no longer need a prescription to obtain emergency contraception, Magyar said, and the government will introduce measures to tackle what he called menstrual poverty.

The government will also amend a 2022 rule passed under Orban that required pregnant women seeking an abortion to provide evidence from a healthcare provider of a definitive sign of life, widely interpreted as a foetal heartbeat.

Magyar said the government would amend the criminal code to strengthen protections for women, including rules governing restraining orders, and would move to ratify the Istanbul Convention, the 2014 Council of Europe treaty aimed at preventing violence against women and domestic violence. The treaty requires signatories to criminalise rape based on the absence of consent.

A break with the Orban era

Magyar, who ended Orban's 16-year rule with an election victory in April, called ratifying the Istanbul Convention a "long overdue debt" of the Hungarian state. Hungary signed the treaty years ago but never ratified it under Orban, whose governments promoted conservative family policies and clashed repeatedly with European institutions over rights and the rule of law.

Thursday's announcements are proposals the government says it will bring forward, not laws already in force. Amending the abortion rule and the criminal code, and ratifying the treaty, will require parliamentary steps in the weeks ahead.

What happens next

The package will now move into legislation, where the details of the contraception change, the restraining-order rules and the treaty ratification will be tested in parliament. Women's rights groups, which campaigned for years against the 2022 rule, are expected to press the government on how quickly the changes take effect.