“A Europe that protects” is Austria’s motto for its presidency of the Council of the EU. But it couldn’t agree to protect everyone. Hungary and Poland on Thursday torpedoed a joint statement by EU employment and social affairs ministers intended to promote gender equity in the digital era because of objections to a reference to LGBTIQ, the initialism intended to cover the fullest panorama of gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer and questioning individuals. Having failed to achieve unanimity, and facing a revolt from EU countries that said they would no longer tolerate the actions of Warsaw and Budapest, Austria adopted the text with the reference to LGBTIQ included. But in EU jargon it was classified as “presidential conclusions” which do not carry the legal weight of formal Council conclusions.