Showing the "Orange Plague" statue at EU parliament violated its rules.
A sculpture by Danish artist Jens Galschiøt, titled “The Orange Plague” (also called “The King of Injustice”). It shows a nude, gold-leaf Donald Trump sitting on the shoulders of a small, frail man, holding a golf club and the scales of justice. A plaque reads: “I am sitting on the back of a man. He is sinking under my burden. I will do anything to help him. Except stepping down from his back.” The figure under Trump is an evolution of a character from Galschiøt's earlier 2002 sculpture, "Survival of the Fattest." That work depicted an emaciated boy carrying a larger woman as a commentary on the inequality of global resource allocation.
A specific group of MEPs called the Quaestors oversee what is exhibited. They are to restrict what is shown.
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/publications/reg/2025/0539/EP-PE_REG(2025)0539_XL.pdf
"Cultural events and exhibitions shall under no circumstances be offensive or of an inflammatory nature or contradictory to the values on which the Union is founded or likely to give rise to disturbances in the designated exhibition areas."
This sentence contains four grounds for prohibition:
- Offensive in nature.
- Inflammatory in nature.
- Contradictory to the Union's founding values.
- Likely to cause disturbances in the exhibition areas.
Of EU's founding values, Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union
The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail.
All terms except arguably 'Likely to cause disturbances in the exhibition areas.' were violated.
They would not have allowed a statue showing these:
- Nude Netanyahu on a frail Muslim
- Nude Xi on a frail Uyghur
- Nude Erdoğan on a frail Kurd
- Nude Modi on a frail Muslim
- Nude Macron or von der Leyen on a frail worker
- Netanyahu as Hitler
- Nude African leader on a frail white man