Status of same-sex registered partnership in the European Union

Nikolić Oliver (Institut za uporedno pravo, Beograd), oliver_nikolic@yahoo.com

The paper presents the institution of same‐sex registered partnerships and its development in the European Union (EU). Given that the EU does not have the authority to impose identical legal solutions on member states in this matter, the situation varies from state to state. Thus, within the EU, some states legally recognise same‐sex marriage, some recognise same‐sex unions, and some provide no legal regulation for same‐sex unions. Since the progressive development of this matter in the EU has been quite complex, both through the adoption of certain legislative acts and through the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the EU and the European Court of Human Rights, the author, through a comparative analysis of the legislation of three EU member states, aims to reach certain conclusions regarding the existing differences in legal systems, as well as to the process of establishing this institution itself, which took place in different social and cultural circumstances.

Keywords: same‐sex registered partnership, EU, Denmark, Italy, Hungary, European Convention on Human Rights, European Court of Human Rights