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Extending rights, responsibilities and status to same-sex families: trends across Europe
Waaldijk, C. 2018
Extending rights, responsibilities and status to same-sex families: trends across Europe
External research report
open access
This report is in part based on the author's comparative analysis of the LawsAndFamilies Database (www.LawsAndFamilies.eu) in his 2017 report More and more together: Legal family formats for same... Show more

This report is in part based on the author's comparative analysis of the LawsAndFamilies Database (www.LawsAndFamilies.eu) in his 2017 report More and more together: Legal family formats for same-sex and different-sex couples in European countries.The report notes clear and rapid trends, among a large majority of the 21 European countries surveyed, of offering same-sex couples the opportunity to formalise their relationship as marriage and/or as registered partnership, and of attaching more and more rights and responsibilities to the cohabitation, the registered partnership and/or the marriage of two people of the same sex. It concludes that the consensus among these countries is particularly strong as regards:

  • legal protections for times of death (such as: tenancy continuation, wrongful death compensation, inheritance, inheritance tax exemption, survivor’s pension);
  • legal protections for times of other great sadness (such as: next of kin provisions, protection against domestic violence, leave from work in case your partner or your partner’s parent is in need of care);
  • the right to come and live in the same country as your partner;
  • the possibility to take (at least some) responsibility for your partner’s children.

The high levels of consensus on these particular issues, may assist the European Court of Human Rights in narrowing the freedom that countries have had in deciding what rights and responsibilities to make available to same-sex couples.The report was written for the Council of Europe (at the initiative of its Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Unit) for a conference (Copenhagen, 2 March 2018) on equal opportunities and rights in private and family life for lesbian, gay, bisexuals, transgender and intersex people. That conference was co-organised by the Danish Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, the Danish Parliament, and the Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The latter Committee, in September 2018, referred to this report in its own report Private and family life: achieving equality regardless of sexual orientation, which on 10 October 2018 led to the adoption by the Parliamentary Assembly on of Resolution 2239(2018).

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Tough love : the European Union's relations with the Western Balkans
Blockmans, S. 2007
Tough love : the European Union's relations with the Western Balkans
Doctoral Thesis
open access
2009-11-01T00:00:00Z; 2009-11-01T00:00:00Z
As part of the international presence in the Western Balkans, the European Union has adopted sanctions, brokered political agreements, launched its first-ever police and military missions and... Show moreAs part of the international presence in the Western Balkans, the European Union has adopted sanctions, brokered political agreements, launched its first-ever police and military missions and directed economic, legal and administrative reforms to eradicate the root causes of instability. Yet, despite the comprehensive nature of its involvement, the EU__s strategies have been marked by confusion, its actions by concurrent or competing mandates of other international organisations. As a result, the returns on its investments are dwindling, at a time when nation-building in the region has entered its final stages with the separation of Serbia and Montenegro, the search for bringing an end to the international governance of Bosnia-Herzegovina and a final status for Kosovo. As the Western Balkans still contain a genuine security threat, there is a real imperative now to move the region as a whole from the stage of international protectorates and weak states to the stage of accession to the euro-atlantic organisations to which they aspire. This book presents legal and political ways and means to restructure the international effort to see the defining processes through. Under the leadership of the EU, only a __tough love__ strategy based on a firm but fair application of the conditionality principle can lead to the integration of the Western Balkans into the European mainstream. Show less