Brussels (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – MEPs debate on recognizing civil status documents of same-sex couples and their children within the EU.
During the February 13, 2025 plenary session in Strasbourg, MEPs debated on the possibility of recognizing same-sex couples’ rights uniformly within the territory of the EU.
The debate focused on the right to free movement across the Union, on the need to protect rainbow families and their children and to avoid legal limbos on parenthood and marital status. More conservative members insisted on the fact they don’t think parenthood is a right and that children need to be raised by heterosexual couples.
Same-sex couples recognition within the EU today
EU law recognizes sexual orientation as a form of discrimination but doesn’t cover health care, recognition of marital and family statues, education, or access to goods and services for LGBTIQ+ people, leaving regulation on these areas up to each member state.
As of today, six EU countries – Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia—don’t offer any legal recognition to same-sex couples. While only half of member states allow homosexual marriage, most other countries – like Hungary, Italy and Greece, for instance – recognize unions similar to marriage, or offer some form of contract or registration.
When it comes to adoption, only 14 out of 27 member states lawfully recognize full same-sex couples adoption. Other countries only partially allow it either on a case by case basis by the courts, like Italy, or in case of step-child adoption, like Estonia.
Such legislative differences between member states limit the freedom of movement and residence for persons within EU territory, a cornerstone of the European Union as established in the Maastricht Treaty of 1992.
I imagine I go somewhere and my partner suddenly gets really sick. In that case, I’m not a person who can make decisions about what to do in a medical emergency. These kinds of things are quite scary to think about,
MEP Kim Van Sparrentak, co-chair of the EU Intergroup on LGBTIQ+, explained to Brussels Morning.
During the debate, Commissioner Glenn Micallef renewed the commitment to proceed with an EU certificate of parenthood and to protect rainbow families from the challenges they face today. MEP Van Sparrentak shared with Brussels Morning her hope that the Commission – that is also expected to present a new LGBTIQ Equality Strategy by the end of 2025 – will keep moving from words to action on this front, and not follow the US direction.
In the meantime,
The European Parliament needs to be very vocal on these issues,
MEP Marc Angel, co-chair with Van Sparrentak of the EU Intergroup on LGBTIQ+, told Brussels Morning, and support from colleagues in national parliaments is also needed.
Which steps could be taken next?
Cross-border recognition of same-sex marriage statues and parenthood can be possible if considering the right to free movement and residence across the EU. As MEP Angel told Brussels Morning, this wouldn’t mean that all member states will have to accept same-sex marriages in their national law. It would simply mean that an EU country cannot deny the marriage status of a citizen of another member state.
However, not all MEPs agree on this, like Paolo Inselvini, MEP from the European Conservatives and Reformists group. He suggested that the debate’s real goal was to deceive the Parliament and to legitimize surrogate motherhood. In that case,
We will be there on the barricades. We will stop your ideological tide,
said the Italian MEP.
Both co-chairs of the LGBTIQ+ intergroup agree that it is just about not discriminating.
There is no ideology, it’s human rights,
Angel told Brussels Morning.
We also have allies outside the LBGTIQ+ intergroup, and they know that if minorities are attacked, everybody is attacked. Even if there are more far-right and populist MEPs, we are still strong,
said MEP Marc Angel as a message to all LBGTIQ+ people in the EU, guaranteeing that they will not give up on their rights.
