9.2.1 Same-Sex Marriage: A Renewed Interpretation of the Right to Marry?

At the time of the adoption of the ECHR in 1950, marriage was understood in the traditional sense of a union between a man and a woman. Accordingly, Article 12 ECHR unequivocally affirms that ‘men and women of marriageable age have the right to marry and to found a family’.Footnote ⁹ The ECtHR case law confirmed that this provision was designed to protect the right to marry a person of the opposite gender even if, in Goodwin,Footnote ¹⁰ the Court precised that the terms man and woman did not necessarily refer to ‘a determination of gender by purely biological criteria’. Similarly, in D and Sweden, the CJEU notoriously considered that ‘according to the definition generally accepted by the Member States, the term marriage means a union between two persons of the opposite sex’.Footnote ¹¹ At the time these decisions were issued, the Netherlands was the only jurisdiction allowing same-sex marriages.

The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU (the Charter) adopted in 2002Footnote ¹² suggests a new approach to marriage. Article 9 of the Charter guarantees the right to marry without any reference to gender. The Charter official commentary explains that this reflects a deliberate choice to ‘broaden the scope’ of the right to marriage considering the ‘diversity of domestic regulations on marriage’ and, notably, the evolution in Dutch and Belgian law.Footnote ¹³ A few years later, in its landmark Schalk and Kopf v Austria decision, the Strasbourg Court strongly relied on the more ‘modern’,Footnote ¹⁴ or ‘liberal’,Footnote ¹⁵ wording of Article 9 of the Charter to deliver a ‘renewed’ interpretation of Article 12 ECHR. Based on the developments in EU law, the Court affirmed that it ‘would no longer consider that the right to marry enshrined in Article 12 must in all circumstances be limited to marriage between two persons of the opposite sex’ and that, as a consequence, ‘it [could not] be said that Article 12 is inapplicable to the applicants’ complaint’.Footnote ¹⁶

However, both the Commentary and Schalk and Kopf underline that the decision to allow same-sex marriage belongs to national authorities. According to the Explanation relating to the Charter of Fundamental Rights, ‘Article [9] neither prohibits nor imposes the granting of the status of marriage to unions between people of the same sex.’Footnote ¹⁷ Similarly, Schalk and Kopf affirmed that ‘marriage has deep-rooted social and cultural connotations which may differ largely from one society to another’ and that ‘it must not rush to substitute its own judgment in place of that of the national authorities’.Footnote ¹⁸ The ECtHR decision has been rightly criticised as the Court did not engage in a true proportionality review. More specifically, it did not explain the relative weight of the applicants’ right and the ‘social and cultural connotations’ put forward by the government nor why the latter should trump the former.Footnote ¹⁹ Having decided that Article 12 did not require State Parties to allow same-sex marriages, the Court also refused to discuss the matter under Articles 8 and 14 as ‘the Convention is to be read as a whole’.Footnote ²⁰

The subsequent case law of the CJEU and the ECtHR confirms this subsidiary approach leaving the issue of same-sex marriage to the discretion of national authorities. The CJEU has frequently recalled that ‘a person’s status, which is relevant to the rules on marriage, is a matter that falls within the competence of the Member States and EU law does not detract from that competence’.Footnote ²¹ In the same vein, the ECtHR has repeatedly confirmed that ‘while it is true that some Contracting States have extended marriage to same-sex partners, Article 12 cannot be construed as imposing an obligation on the Contracting States to grant access to marriage to same-sex couples’ and even specified that ‘it enshrines the traditional concept of marriage as being between a man and a woman’.Footnote ²² This reiterated reference to the heterosexual nature of marriage might be considered as a step backward in comparison with the more open-ended considerations expressed in Schalk and Kopf.

However, some positive trends may be observed in the recent case law of both courts. In its landmark decision in Coman v Inspectoratul Genral Pentru imigrari,Footnote ²³ the CJEU delivered a progressive interpretation of the term ‘spouse’. In the Court’s view ‘the term “spouse” within the meaning of Directive 2004/38 is gender-neutral and may therefore cover the same-sex spouse of the Union citizen concerned’.Footnote ²⁴ For its part, in Orlandi and Others v Italy, the ECtHR slightly amended its way of referring to State Parties’ discretion regarding the issue of same-sex marriage by affirming that they ‘are still free … to restrict access to marriage to different-sex couples’ (emphasis added).Footnote ²⁵ This might be considered as a first tangible indication of a possible tightening of European control linked to the evolution of national legislations.Footnote ²⁶

9.2.2 Transgender Spouses: A Particular Case of Same-Sex Marriage

In recent years, both the ECtHR and the CJEU have had to deal with a particular configuration of the claim for authorising same-sex marriage, arising from situations where individuals married to a different sex spouse have subsequently changed their gender identity.

In the ECtHR case Hämäläinen v Finland,Footnote ²⁷ the applicant was a trans woman denouncing the fact that she could not be officially registered as a woman without ending her marriage with the woman whom she had married before her transition because, at the time, Finland did not allow same-sex marriage. She could either divorce or consent to her marriage being converted into a registered partnership. In its 2014 decision, the Court considered that such alternative was not in breach of the ECHR, considering the lack of European consensus on allowing same-sex marriage or dealing with the pre-existing marriage of trans persons.Footnote ²⁸ The Court also endorsed the government’s view that when a marriage was ‘converted’ into a registered partnership ‘the original legal relationship [continued] with only a change of title and minor changes to the content of the relationship’.Footnote ²⁹ The Court finally considered that ‘the effects of the conversion of the applicant’s marriage into a registered partnership would be minimal or non-existent as far as the applicant’s family life is concerned’Footnote ³⁰ and that no separate issue arose under Article 12 of the ECHR.Footnote ³¹ These explanations equating marriage with registered partnership can hardly be reconciled with the Court’s classic rhetoric that ‘marriage confers a special status on those who enter into it’.Footnote ³² This contradiction arguably makes the whole reasoning unsatisfactory as it biased the proportionality test. Indeed, three dissenting judges found it very problematic to force the applicant to choose between having her gender identity recognised and keeping her civil status. In their opinion, persons in the applicant’s situation should be allowed to remain married after the acknowledgment of the acquired gender. This is one of the very rare occasions where Strasbourg judges expressly took a position in favour of (a very specific type of) same-sex marriage.

A few years later, in M.B. v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions,Footnote ³³ the CJEU was faced with a similar situation but in the context of Directive 79/7/EEC on the progressive implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women in matters of social security.Footnote ³⁴ The applicant in the main proceedings was a trans woman who was faced with the same cruel alternative as Mrs Hämäläinen, before same-sex marriage was introduced in the UK in 2014. For religious reasons, she decided to remain married with her wife and renounced having her acquired female gender officially registered. However, when she reached the age of sixty at which women were entitled to retirement pension, the applicant applied for such a pension but was refused. Referring, among others, to MarukoFootnote ³⁵ and ComanFootnote ³⁶, the Court admitted that ‘EU law does not detract from the competence of the Member States in matters of civil status and legal recognition of the change of a person’s gender’.Footnote ³⁷ Differently from Hämäläinen, the applicant ‘only’ claimed entitlement to a retirement pension rather than the recognition of gender as such. Accordingly, the Court ruled that Article 4 of Directive 79/7 that prohibits sex-based discrimination precluded national legislation obliging a transgender person to end their marriage to benefit from a retirement pension at the age corresponding to their new identity.

This case demonstrates how, through the specifics of EU law, the ECtHR decision allowing a State to require dissolution of marriage as a condition for gender recognition is somewhat softened by a CJEU decision providing the persons who refuse to end their marriage with at least some of the benefits associated with the unrecognised acquired gender.

9.2.3 Registered Partnerships: Official Recognition as a Basic Right

While the CJEU does not consider itself legitimate to impose on states the creation of a legal status accessible to same-sex couples, the Strasbourg Court has recently confirmed that such a positive obligation exists under Article 8 ECHR.

Already in 2001, the CJEU found in D and Sweden v Council of the European Union, that ‘since 1989 an increasing number of Member States have introduced, alongside marriage, statutory arrangements granting legal recognition to various forms of union between partners of the same sex or of the opposite sex and conferring on such unions certain effects’.Footnote ³⁸ At the time, the Court considered that this did not imply that registered partners could be covered by the term ‘married official’ used in the Community Staff Regulations.Footnote ³⁹ Since then, the EU has extended the benefits associated with marriage to registered EU officials as far as they do not have access to marriage.Footnote ⁴⁰ However, in Parris v Trinity College Dublin,Footnote ⁴¹ the Court recalled that ‘Member States are … free to provide or not provide … an alternative form of legal recognition of [same-sex relationships], and, if they do so provide, to lay down the date from which such a marriage or alternative form is to have effect’.Footnote ⁴² This is an obvious consequence of ‘the lack of EU competence with regard to these matters which … means that the EU cannot legislate in order to require all EU Member States to afford legal recognition to the familial ties among the members of rainbow families in their own territory’.Footnote ⁴³

The ECtHR, however, has progressively affirmed the right for same-sex couples to an alternative legal status. In Schalk and Kopf, the ECtHR considered that states enjoyed a margin of appreciation ‘in the timing of the introduction of legislative changes’Footnote ⁴⁴ as well as ‘as regards the exact status conferred by alternative means of recognition’.Footnote ⁴⁵ As the European consensus on partnerships grew stronger, the Court reconsidered its initial position. In the 2015 Oliari and others v Italy decision,Footnote ⁴⁶ the ECtHR ruled that the lack of any form of official registration available to same-sex partners was in breach of the right to family life guaranteed by Article 8 ECHR. The Court insisted that ‘same-sex couples … are in a relevantly similar situation to a different-sex couple as regards their need for legal recognition and protection of their relationship’.Footnote ⁴⁷ It also underlined that, given the impossibility to marry, same-sex couples had a ‘particular interest’ in an alternative status providing them ‘core rights’ relevant to a couple and endowed with an ‘intrinsic value’ irrespective of its specific legal effects.Footnote ⁴⁸ In the Court’s view, the Italian Government failed to indicate the ‘community interest’ that would have justified the absence of a statute.Footnote ⁴⁹ Moreover, the Court considered that while a wide margin of discretion must be recognised as to the ‘exact status’ conferred, such large margin did not apply to the ‘general need’ for legal recognition, especially in a European context where legal recognition of same-sex couples was rapidly gaining ground.Footnote ⁵⁰

Since Oliari was based on several very specific aspects of the Italian context,Footnote ⁵¹ it was not clear whether it imposed a positive obligation on all CoE States to create an alternative form of union.Footnote ⁵² In 2017, the CoE Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muižnieks, observed that ‘it is difficult to read the Oliari judgment, and concurring opinion, as anything else than placing a positive obligation on states parties to the ECHR to provide legal recognition to same-sex couples as a way to protect their right to family life’.Footnote ⁵³ This positive obligation to provide a legal framework was confirmed by the Court in Fedotova and others v Russia, first in a chamber judgment issued on 13 July 2021,Footnote ⁵⁴ and subsequently in a Grand Chamber decision issued on 17 January 2023.Footnote ⁵⁵

9.2.4 Social Benefits: Piercing the Veil of Marriage

While lacking the legitimacy to require States to set up registered partnership formulas, the CJEU has proven particularly committed to the defence and development of the rights of registered partners. In several cases, the Court has considered, on the basis of the Employment Equality Directive (Directive 2000/78/EC),Footnote ⁵⁶ that same-sex couples who could not marry but only enter into a registered partnership should be granted the same social benefits as different-sex spouses. First, in Maruko and Römer,Footnote ⁵⁷ the Court decided that German Lebenspartners should be able to benefit from a survivor’s or retirement pension under the same conditions as heterosexual spouses. It emphasised, however, that its ruling only applied to partnerships that, as the German status, were reserved for same-sex couples and provided effects very similar to those associated with marriage. However, this approach was expanded, in Hay v Crédit Agricole,Footnote ⁵⁸ to partnerships available to both different-sex and same-sex couples and less close to marriage regarding legal effects, as the French Pacte civil de solidarité (PACS). In this case, the Court indeed decided that a gay employee entering into a PACS with a person of the same sex should be entitled to the same bonus and leave as those provided to heterosexual persons on the occasion of their marriage. This string of case law constitutes an important step forward for same-sex couples by implying that same-sex registered partners deprived of access to marriage must as a minimum enjoy the same benefits as spouses. Nevertheless, its scope remains limited to situations where same-sex partners have access to at least some form of official registration.

For its part, the ECtHR was prompt to require equal rights for same-sex and different-sex de facto partners, but durably allowed States to favour different-sex spouses over unmarried same-sex partners deprived of access to marriage.

In 2003, the Court decided in KarnerFootnote ⁵⁹ that a surviving same-sex de facto partner should have the right to continue his deceased partner’s tenancy in the same way as a surviving different-sex de facto partner. Considering that the issue fell into the ambit of the protection of ‘home’ under Article 8 ECHR (as the Court did not yet recognise that same-sex couples can enjoy ‘family life’ as such), the Court stated that differences in treatment on the basis of sexual orientation must be justified by ‘particularly serious reasons’Footnote ⁶⁰ and that the aim of protecting the traditional family was legitimate but ‘rather abstract’ and pursuable through ‘a broad variety of concrete measures’.Footnote ⁶¹ In the Court’s view, Austria did not demonstrate the necessity to exclude same-sex partners to achieve that aim. This requirement that unmarried couples be treated equally, regardless of their sexual orientation, was confirmed in subsequent decisions, such as Kozak v PolandFootnote ⁶² and P.B. and J.S. v Austria.Footnote ⁶³

However, when the ECtHR was faced with the question of whether same-sex partners deprived of the possibility of marrying should be granted the same social benefits as married opposite-sex couples, it was not as bold as the CJEU and refused – for de facto partners as well as for registered partners – to pierce the veil of marriage. In Manenc v FranceFootnote ⁶⁴ and Mata Estevez v Spain,Footnote ⁶⁵ the Court indeed accepted the State’s choice to provide a survivor’s pension only to spouses, even if that implied that same-sex partners were necessarily deprived of such pension as, at the time, it was impossible for them to marry. The Court thus failed to recognise the discrimination based on sexual orientation hiding behind the distinction based on civil status. Despite strong criticism,Footnote ⁶⁶ this approach has also been applied later in Gas and Dubois, as regards access to adoption.Footnote ⁶⁷ Fortunately, it seems to have been abandoned in the Taddeucci and McCallFootnote ⁶⁸ decision relating to family reunification, in which the court decided that same-sex de facto partners who cannot marry should have the same right to family reunification as different-sex spouses.Footnote ⁶⁹ It shall be seen whether the Court will, in the future, transpose this new reasoning to the issue of social benefits that was at stake in Manenc and Mata Estevez. In such case, the ECtHR case law would provide a useful complement to the Hay case law by expanding its egalitarian dynamic to de facto partners.

It should be mentioned, finally, that, in two decisions issued in 2016, the CJEU as well as the ECtHR still refused to extend spouses’ survivor’s pension rights to same-sex partners, even if the specificity of these cases may limit their significance. In Parris v Trinity College Dublin,Footnote ⁷⁰ the CJEU decided that the denial of a survivor’s pension to the applicant’s same-sex registered partner on the ground that at the time of his retirement in 2010 such pension was reserved for spouses was not in breach of the provisions of Directive 2000/78/EC, even if at that time same-sex couples could not marry (Ireland allowed same-sex marriage in 2015). In Aldeguer Tomas v Spain,Footnote ⁷¹ the ECtHR similarly ruled that the denial of a survivor’s pension to a surviving same-sex de facto partner on the ground that at the time of the death in 2002 such pension was reserved for spouses was not in breach of the ECHR, even if at that time same-sex couples could not choose to marry (Spain allowed same-sex marriages in 2005). As mentioned above, the relevance of both cases is arguably limited due to their specific circumstances. Indeed, both Spain and Ireland had in the meantime taken effective steps to expand the right to a survivor’s pension to same-sex partners either through the institution of a civil partnership scheme providing for a survivor’s pension (Ireland)Footnote ⁷² or through access to marriage and all associated benefits (Spain). Thus, the courts might take a different approach in cases where the State has not taken such steps in view of guaranteeing equality between couples in the enjoyment of social benefits.

9.2.5 Family Reunification: The Strong Protection of the Partners’ Core Right to Simply Be Together

In the spectacular Coman judgment issued on 5 June 2018, the CJEU decided that, to determine the beneficiaries of the right to family reunification of EU citizens, the term ‘spouse’ referred to in Article 2(2)(b) of the 2004/38 directive on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member StatesFootnote ⁷³ must be understood as including same-sex spouses as well as different-sex spouses, even if the host state does not allow same-sex marriages. Accordingly, Romania must provide a residence permit to the American spouse with whom a Romanian citizen had been validly married in Brussels where they effectively resided together before moving to Romania. This does not amount to a full recognition of the marriage as it must only be taken into account in the application of EU family reunification law. The judgment is, nevertheless, significant in clearly recognising the right to family reunification for same-sex spouses of EU citizens in all EU Member States. In particular, the Court stressed that the concept of spouse was gender-neutral and had to be interpreted in the light of the aim of directive 2004/38 and of Article 7 of the Charter providing for the right to respect for private and family life. From this perspective, the right of same-sex couples to live together in the Member State of which one of them is a national outweighs the Member States’ desire to protect their ‘public order’ or ‘national identity’. Based on Coman, this right is only recognised with respect to EU citizens who have entered into a same-sex marriage in another Member State. The future will tell whether its scope can be extended to foreigners legally residing in the Union via Directive 2003/86 and to marriages concluded outside the EU.Footnote ⁷⁴

Quite interestingly, in the context of this contribution, the ECtHR case law provides very significant additions to the protection offered by Coman. While Directive 2004/38 only protects same-sex couples who are married or in a registered partnership equivalent to marriage, the ECtHR decided in PajicFootnote ⁷⁵ and Taddeucci and McCall that same-sex de facto partners without access to marriage should benefit from family reunification under the same conditions as different-sex de facto partners and different sex-spouses. In Pajic, the Court applied the established Karner case law on the requirement that same-sex de facto partners be granted the same rights as different-sex de facto partners. Accordingly, the Croatian legislation allowing the reunification of heterosexual de facto partners only was in breach of articles 8 and 14 of the ECHR. Taddeucci goes much further. It departs from the approach taken in ManencFootnote ⁷⁶ and Mata EstevezFootnote ⁷⁷ and considers that, as regards marriage-associated benefits, same-sex de facto partners who do not have access to marriage are not in a situation analogous to that of different-sex de facto partners who have the possibility of contracting marriage. However, the Italian legislation treated them in the same way by denying the right to family reunification to all de facto partners. Such similar treatment of different situations is in breach of the ECHR unless the defending State adduces ‘particularly convincing and weighty reasons’. In the Court’s view, the ‘margin of appreciation enjoyed by the States in protecting the traditional family’ invoked by the government did not meet this standard.Footnote ⁷⁸

9.2.6 Recognition of Marriages Celebrated Abroad: Partnerships as a Way of Compromise

The Coman judgment cautiously recalls that ‘a person’s status, which is relevant to the rules on marriage, is a matter that falls within the competence of the Member States’Footnote ⁷⁹ and only affirms ‘an obligation to recognise [same-sex] marriages for the sole purpose of granting a derived right of residence to a third-country national’.Footnote ⁸⁰ It has been suggested, however, that, at some point, the Coman dynamic may lead to a more general principle of recognition of same-sex marriage celebrated abroad. Indeed, it remains to be seen to what extent it will or will not be ‘sustainable’Footnote ⁸¹ to confine the recognition of marriage to the sole question of family reunification. It is unclear whether host states, when required to grant residence permits to same-sex spouses, will be able to refuse the latter all the benefits normally deriving from marriage. It is reasonable to think that this first form of ‘targeted recognition’Footnote ⁸² will give rise to others, for example regarding the social and/or fiscal effects of marriageFootnote ⁸³ by way of a kind of ‘contagion or percolation’ effect.Footnote ⁸⁴ Coman might thus be auguring a trend towards a larger or even a full recognition of same-sex marriages across EU Member States: if more and more rights arise from marriages celebrated abroad it may become increasingly difficult to justify a refusal of the title of ‘spouses’. Considering the current position of the CJEU on the Member States’ competence regarding marriage, it is however unlikely that such an obligation of full recognition will be affirmed in the near future.

Recently, the ECtHR arrived at a compromise approach. In Orlandi v Italy,Footnote ⁸⁵ the Court found that Italy could not, without violating the Convention, deny any form of recognition to foreign same-sex marriages. The applicants were same-sex couples married in Canada, the United States, and the Netherlands complaining that various local administrations in Italy had refused to officially register their marriages. The Court stated that the recognition of a person’s ‘real marital status’ was a matter of personal and social identity and ‘psychological integrity’.Footnote ⁸⁶ The Court also pointed out that since Schalk and Kopf, the right to marry was applicable to same-sex couples wishing to marry and that it followed that Article 12 ECHR also applied to same-sex couples already married in another legal order.Footnote ⁸⁷ Nevertheless, states were ‘still free’ to reserve marriage for heterosexualsFootnote ⁸⁸ and may legitimately aim to prevent their nationals from having recourse abroad to institutions refused in their legal order.Footnote ⁸⁹ Against this background, the Court noted that the lack of recognition had not deprived the applicants either of the rights they had previously enjoyed in Italy or the rights acquired in the country where they had married.Footnote ⁹⁰ Moreover, Italy was allowed a comfortable margin of appreciation since, despite the rapid movement in favour of the recognition of same-sex couples in Europe, America, and Australasia,Footnote ⁹¹ there was no consensus among the states refusing same-sex marriage on the recognition of marriages celebrated abroad.Footnote ⁹² However, the Court held that domestic authorities, without having to recognise the marriages as such, should have taken them into consideration as civil unions. Indeed, the absence of any recognition and the subsequent legal vacuum disregarded the social reality of the applicants’ situation without compelling justification.Footnote ⁹³

9.3.1 Same-Sex Parenthood: A Matter of National Identity?

The ECtHR has dealt with the question of same-sex adoption in two significantly different cases. The first case, Gas and Dubois,Footnote ⁹⁴ concerned two women who lived together in a registered partnership in France. They had travelled to Belgium to conceive a child through assisted reproductive technology (ART) and wanted the child to be adopted in France by the birth mother’s partner. However, such adoption was impossible as intra-family adoption was reserved to spouses, and marriage to different-sex couples only. In the second case, X. and others v Austria,Footnote ⁹⁵ two women living together in a de facto relationship and raising the child that one of them had conceived during a previous heterosexual relationship wanted the child to be adopted by the mother’s partner. Such adoption was impossible as intra-family adoption was only allowed for different-sex de facto partners but not for same-sex de facto partners.

Beyond the difference regarding the circumstances of the child conception, the main contrast between Gas and Dubois and X. and others was that, in the former, the applicants could not adopt because adoption was reserved for spouses (and marriage was reserved for opposite-sex couples), whereas in the latter, the couple could not adopt because adoption was reserved for opposite-sex couples, either married or not. In the former case, therefore, the difference based on sexual orientation was somehow ‘hidden’ behind a distinction made on the basis of matrimonial status whereas in the latter, it was ‘blatant’, as adoption was available to different-sex de facto partners but not same-sex de facto partners.

In both cases, the Court accepted that there existed a family life between the two women and the child which is protected by Article 8 ECHR. Beyond this, the Court ruled very differently. In Gas and Dubois, the Court considered that the applicants were treated by France exactly like opposite-sex registered partners who could not adopt and could not be compared to opposite-sex spouses as ‘marriage confers a special status on those who enter into it’.Footnote ⁹⁶ In some sense, the ECtHR refused to see that it was the applicants’ sexual orientation that prevented them from marrying which – in turn – prevented them to proceed to the adoption. The Court disregarded the forbidden discrimination based on sexual orientation poorly concealed behind an admissible distinction on the basis of the status of a couple. Things turned out very differently in X. and others. Since the distinction was clearly based on the applicants’ sexual orientation, the Court referred to Salgueiro Da Silva MoutaFootnote ⁹⁷ and E.B. v FranceFootnote ⁹⁸ to recall that ‘differences based solely on considerations of sexual orientation are unacceptable under the Convention’.Footnote ⁹⁹ The protection of the traditional family was considered ‘a weighty and legitimate reason which might justify a difference in treatment’ although it was ‘rather abstract’ and could be pursued by ‘a broad variety of concrete measures’.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ As the government admitted that ‘same-sex couples may be as suited for second-parent adoption as different-sex couples’, the Court concluded that Austria did not adduce ‘particularly strong and convincing reasons’ to justify the disputed distinction and that there had been a breach of Articles 8 and 14 ECHR.Footnote ¹⁰¹ X. and others undoubtedly constituted a big step forward for lesbian and gay parents but its importance is undermined by the circular reasoning relied on in Gas and Dubois by which the right to adoption is only guaranteed where de facto partners may adopt.

Fortunately, Taddeucci and McCall dismissed the Gas and Dubois approach and logically considered that the ‘specificity of marriage’ argument cannot be used against those who cannot marry,Footnote ¹⁰². One can thus hope that this updated reasoning will be applied in future same-sex adoption cases and that the ECtHR will accordingly affirm an explicit right to same-sex adoption based on the idea put forward in X. and others that ‘same-sex couples [are] as suited for … adoption as different-sex couples’.Footnote ¹⁰³

While favourable developments may thus be expected as regards adoption,Footnote ¹⁰⁴ the ECtHR may remain more reluctant to affirm the right to ‘direct’ (as opposed to ‘adoptive’) same-sex parenthood established through a legal presumption or acknowledgement of ‘co-maternity’ or ‘co-paternity’. To our knowledge, the ECtHR has delivered only one decision on the matter – Boeckel and Gessner-Boeckel.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ In this case, two German women were living together in a Lebenspartnerschaft and one of them gave birth to a son. Two years after the birth, the German court allowed a second parent adoption, by the mother’s life partner. The applicants subsequently requested the court to change the child’s birth certificate, as, in their view, the presumption automatically designating the mother’s husband as the child’s legal father should have been applied mutatis mutandis in their situation. The ECtHR found, however, that same-sex registered partners and opposite-sex spouses were not in a comparable situation in this respect. According to the Court, the presumption was based on the idea that ‘the man who was married to the child’s mother at the time of birth was indeed the child’s biological father … [even if] this legal presumption might not always reflect the true descent’ whereas, in contrast, ‘in case one partner of a same-sex partnership gives birth to a child, it can be ruled out on biological grounds that the child descended from the other partner’.Footnote ¹⁰⁶

In the very recent V.M.A. v Stolichna obshtina case,Footnote ¹⁰⁷ the CJEU similarly emphasised that ‘a person’s status, which is relevant to the rules on marriage and parentage, is a matter that falls within the competence of the Member States’ and that they ‘are thus free to decide whether or not to allow marriage and parenthood for persons of the same sex’.Footnote ¹⁰⁸ In her Opinion, Advocate General Kokott more specifically noted that among the Member States that allow same-sex marriage, ‘only some provide for the ‘automatic’ parenthood of the wife of the biological mother of a child’Footnote ¹⁰⁹ and that ‘the rules on parentage determine the family relationships which are at the heart of family law’ and ‘represent the essence of the conception which the [State] is seeking to protect as its national identity’.Footnote ¹¹⁰

Currently, another case concerning the issue of same-sex parenthood, R.F. and others v Germany,Footnote ¹¹¹ is pending before the ECtHR. Differently from the Boeckel case, here one of the women gave birth while the other provided the eggs. Accordingly, both women may claim to be – in some sense – the child’s biological mother. In light of the recent confirmation by the CJEU that the recognition of same-sex parenthood is a matter that should be left to the states, it remains to be seen whether this double biological connection with the child will lead the court to take a different approach than the one taken in Boeckel and rule in favour of the applicants.

9.3.2 Assisted Reproductive Technology: The Cross-Border Dimension

The ECtHR has never had the opportunity to address clearly the question of whether same-sex couples could have an ECHR-guaranteed right to found a family via ART techniques. In Gas and Dubois, the applicants had travelled to Belgium for insemination but the Court was not seized of the question of access to ART but only of the subsequent issue of adoption. The Court nevertheless noted that ‘while French law provides that … insemination is available only to heterosexual couples it also states that it is to be made available for therapeutic purposes only’. From this therapeutic perspective, the applicants’ situation cannot be compared to that of infertile heterosexual couples and they cannot be said to be discriminated against.Footnote ¹¹² Gas and Dubois was followed by another French application – Charron and Merle-MontetFootnote ¹¹³ – to the ECtHR. The application concerned the fact that lesbian couples had no access to insemination in France but was considered inadmissible as the applicant had not exhausted the domestic remedies.Footnote ¹¹⁴ In any case, it must be kept in mind that the ECtHR has proven very reluctant to impose any obligation on State Parties as regards medically assisted procreation (MAP) even in situations involving opposite-sex couples.Footnote ¹¹⁵ In the foreseeable future, the Court is therefore very unlikely to take serious steps in favour of same-sex partners who want to become parents through ART.

Due to the fact that ART constitutes medical services under EU law these are to be considered ‘services’ within the meaning of Article 57 TFEU insofar as they are carried out legally and in return for payment, and ‘health care’ within the meaning of directive 2011/24/EU on patient mobility.Footnote ¹¹⁶ EU law thus generally allows individuals to move within the Union to benefit from ART techniques, even when these techniques are prohibited in their State of origin. It seems that a ‘considerable flow of patients’ crosses borders between European states for reproductive purpose, either because of ‘legal restrictions based on prohibition of the technique per se, or because of inaccessibility due to the characteristics of the patients (like age, sexual orientation or civil status)’.Footnote ¹¹⁷

However, the freedom to provide services protected by the TFEU is not absolute and states may try to prevent their nationals from crossing borders to resort to domestically prohibited techniques.Footnote ¹¹⁸ Directive 2011/24/EU indeed stipulates that none of its provisions ‘should be interpreted in such a way as to undermine the fundamental ethical choices of Member States’.Footnote ¹¹⁹ In this respect, it is worth mentioning that in her Opinion in V.M.A. v Stolichna obshtina, Advocate General Kokott included human reproduction among ‘the fundamental institutions of family law’. In her view, ‘national rules governing marriage (or divorce) and parentage (or even reproduction) define the family relationships which are at the heart of this field’.Footnote ¹²⁰

Similarly, in the Mennesson case, the ECtHR decided that a state could legitimately seek ‘to deter its nationals from having recourse to methods of assisted reproduction outside the national territory that are prohibited on its own territory’.Footnote ¹²¹ On a different note, however, it must be kept in mind that in S.H. and others v Austria, the Court explicitly noted that restrictions to access to ART were ‘more acceptable’ if nationals could easily seek the desired treatments abroad.Footnote ¹²² There may be a form of paradox or at least tension here, since, while states may thus seek to discourage ‘reproductive tourism’, the Court sometimes considers state bans to be less problematic when the denied services can be accessed in another country.

9.3.3 Shared Parental Responsibility and Contacts: A Favourable, Yet Timid, Evolution

Currently, the EU has no competence to regulate adoption and parenthood, and the ECtHR is not (yet) ready to explicitly affirm the right to same-sex adoption or a fortiori a hypothetical right to same-sex parenthood. In this situation, European judges may try to put forward the right for same-sex parents and their children to enjoy at least some ‘core’ rights allowing the flourishing of the adult–child relationship. To our knowledge, only the ECtHR has been asked to rule on the critical issues of parental responsibility and contacts in the specific context of rainbow families. Unfortunately, its decisions on the matter did not further much the cause of legal recognition and protection of the links established in such families.

In 2018, in Bonnaud and Lecoq,Footnote ¹²³ the ECtHR decided that the impossibility for a couple of women to share parental responsibility over the two children that they were raising together was not contrary to the ECHR. Each of them had become mother of one of the children through ART in Belgium and they wished to exercise joint parental authority over both of them using a mutual ‘delegation of parental authority’ which under French law is a general possibility for (a) parent(s) to share parental responsibility with a third party. However, the domestic courts found that, as both women were already perceived as the children’s mothers by family and friends and as they did not report any particular difficulties, the necessity of a delegation had not been demonstrated. The ECtHR endorsed this explanation observing that the refusal to grant the delegation was based on the factual circumstances of the caseFootnote ¹²⁴ and that the assessment by the French courts did not reveal any difference in treatment based on sexual orientation.Footnote ¹²⁵

In 2020, in Honner,Footnote ¹²⁶ the Court similarly considered that the denial of a right to contact the mother’s ex-partner who had assumed the role of a second mother for years was not in breach of the Convention. Here, again, the couple had travelled to a Belgian fertility centre, and the woman who had given birth had appointed her partner as the child’s testamentary guardian and had also largely entrusted her with the child’s daily upbringing. The two women had entered into a civil partnership in 2009 but separated in 2012, and the child’s mother had subsequently refused contacts between the child and her ex-partner who had then applied for contact as a person having established lasting emotional ties with the child. The national judge, however, refused to order such right to contact as, due to the very sharp deterioration in the relationship between the two women, contacts did not appear to be in the child’s best interest. The ECtHR ruled in favour of the defending State by considering that French courts had delivered a ‘carefully reasoned’ decision, taking into consideration all the relevant facts and prioritising the prevailing interest of the child who was in a traumatic and guilt-inducing situation.

One may consider that Bonnaud and Lecoq as well as Honner did not give due consideration to the fact that the applicants were not ordinary ‘third parties’ but the child’s co-mothers. There had been no possibility of officialising the relationship between the children and their mother’s partner despite the joint parental project, as, at the time, they could not have recourse to intra-family adoption and no alternative parenting status had been designed to accommodate the specific needs of rainbow families. However, by applying the general provisions of the Civil Code to the applicants as if they were any ‘third party’ in relation to their children and eluding the fact that they were actually the children’s second parents, the French decisions may certainly be considered as treating obviously different situations in a similar manner which, arguably, the Court should have considered contrary to Article 14 ECHR.Footnote ¹²⁷

Most recently, the ECtHR dealt with another French case, Callamand,Footnote ¹²⁸ which concerned the refusal of post-separation contacts between a child and her mother’s ex-wife. The Court decided that in that particular situation, the French courts had not given sufficient consideration to the co-mother’s right to respect for her family life and had accordingly violated Article 8 ECHR. Specifically, the Court noted that ‘the applicant sought only the opportunity to continue to see, from time to time, a child in respect of whom she had acted as a co-parent for more than two years since her birth’.Footnote ¹²⁹ Unlike in Honner, the Court considered that ‘it [was] not sufficiently clear from the reasoning of the domestic courts how they proceeded to investigate whether a fair balance was maintained between potentially conflicting interests’Footnote ¹³⁰ and that ‘the Court of Appeal did not show that the fact that [the child] was having difficulties was in consequence of his meetings with [the applicant]’.Footnote ¹³¹ Thus, while not formally departing from the Honner approach, Callamand may be considered a timid evolution towards an increased ECHR protection provided to social and affective ties established in the context of rainbow families.

9.3.4 Social Benefits: The Work–Life Balance of Same-Sex Parents

As regards parenting-associated social benefits, so far, the ECtHR does not appear very inclined to require states to treat same-sex parents similarly to different sex-parents, which may seem consistent with the approach taken in Bonnaud and Honner but which may change in the post-Callamand context.

Indeed, in Hallier and others,Footnote ¹³² the Court considered that refusing a co-mother the benefit of a paternity leave was not in breach of the Convention. The Court did consider that a lesbian co-mother ‘is in a situation comparable to that of a biological father in a heterosexual couple’; however, it noted that legislation on paternity leave ‘was intended to strengthen fathers’ responsibility for their children’s upbringing … and to bring about a change in the sharing of domestic tasks between men and women’.Footnote ¹³³ According to the Court, granting fathers eleven days of paid leave was proportionate to such a legitimate aim. Moreover, the Court said that the differentiated treatment was not based on sex or sexual orientation but on the existence or absence of a biological link with the child. Finally, the Strasbourg judges considered that ‘making the benefit of this leave dependent on a parenthood link with the child could, at the time in question, fall within the margin of appreciation granted to the State in this area’.Footnote ¹³⁴

The Court’s reasoning may be considered unsatisfying. First, the aim of strengthening fathers’ responsibility would not be undermined in any way by providing the parental leave also to co-mothers. Then, the justification based on biological links may be considered weak as some legal fathers are not their child’s biological fathers. Conversely, there are situations where a co-mother is biologically related to her partner’s child, such as in the circumstances of R.F. and others. Finally, as concerns the distinction based on legal parenthood as such, the reasoning may be considered flawed as it neglects the fact that, at the time, it was impossible for the applicants to have such tie legally established because of their sexual orientation. Once again, this amounts to denying a specific benefit to same-sex couples blaming them for not having established a legal relationship that had been impossible for them to establish.

This decision of the ECtHR seems to be based on broadly the same premises as the EU directive 2019/1158 on work–life balance for parents and carers.Footnote ¹³⁵ Indeed, whereas the directive officially ‘acknowledges the existence of non-traditional family types’,Footnote ¹³⁶ it does not include any provision referring directly to same-sex parents or prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. There might thus be a ‘heteronormative bias’ here, in the way in which families are perceived and described.Footnote ¹³⁷ As a consequence, directive 2019/1158 may be considered as not paying sufficient attention to the need of families that do not reflect traditional gender norms, such as rainbow families.Footnote ¹³⁸ It shall be seen whether the CJEU might be able to increase inclusiveness in EU parental leave law through interpretation, notably in the light of the Charter provisions.

9.3.5 Family Reunification: The Landmark V.M.A. v Stolichna Obshtina Case

One important step in favour of rainbow families was taken by the CJEU in the V.M.A. v Stolichna obshtina case.Footnote ¹³⁹ The applicant in the main proceedings was a Bulgarian woman married to a British woman. They had resided together in Spain since 2015 and had a daughter in 2019. The Spanish birth certificate mentioned the applicant’s wife as ‘mother’ and the applicant as ‘mother A’. In 2020, the couple asked the Bulgarian administration to issue a Bulgarian birth certificate to the child but their request was rejected based on the fact that Bulgarian birth certificates only have one box for ‘mother’ and one for ‘father’. Only one name may be entered in each box.

The Court noted that despite not recognising the applicant’s parenthood, national courts had found that the child was to be considered a Bulgarian national. While this position could seem inconsistent, it implied that as an EU citizen, the child was entitled to identity documents recognising her parents as established in another member state which allowed her to be accompanied by them when exercising her freedom of movement.Footnote ¹⁴⁰ As the national position allowing nationality while refusing parenthood felt somewhat unconvincing (the latter normally flowing from the former), the CJEU also considered the alternate hypothesis where the child would not be granted Bulgarian nationality based on its Coman reasoning. Just as the term ‘spouse’ in Directive 2004/38 must be interpreted as to include same-sex spouses legally married in a Member State, the term ‘descendant’ in the same Directive must be read as applying to children whose relationship with their same-sex parents has been validly established somewhere in the EU.Footnote ¹⁴¹ The CJEU specifically added, exactly as in Coman, that ‘the obligation … to recognise the parent-child relationship between [a child] and [their same-sex parents] in the context of the child’s exercise of her rights under Article 21 TFEU and secondary legislation relating thereto, does not undermine the national identity or pose a threat to the public policy of that Member State’.Footnote ¹⁴²

While such consecration of the right to free movement of rainbow families is undeniably a very significant achievement, the scope of V.M.A. v Stolichna obshtina is limited.Footnote ¹⁴³ On the one hand, it only covers birth certificates issued by a Member State and does not apply to same-sex legal parenthood established in a third country.Footnote ¹⁴⁴ On the other hand, the obligation of recognition is limited to the exercise of the right to free movement and does not involve the other legal effects of legal parenthood.

9.3.6 Recognition of Parenthood Established Abroad: Towards an EU Regulation?

V.M.A. v Stolichna obshtina has set up a very important milestone but family reunification as such is not sufficient to guarantee the real freedom of movement of mobile rainbow families. Unless the ties of legal parenthood are fully or entirely recognised, the latter will still be confronted with awkward and complicated situations where, while being allowed to settle together, rainbow families will not be considered as legal families for most aspects of parent–child relationships such as parental responsibility, social benefits, tax law, inheritance, and so on. Also, it is not certain whether and how states that are obliged to welcome same-sex parents’ families in their legal order may progressively be inclined or constrained – through the operation of a ‘contagion or percolation’ dynamic – to grant them the full range of rights and duties normally arising from legal parenthood.

Notably, in her 2020 State of the Union address,Footnote ¹⁴⁵ the president of the Commission Ursula von der Leyen expressly declared that ‘to make sure that we support the whole community, the Commission will soon put forward a strategy to strengthen LGBTQI rights’ and that, as a part of this, she would ‘push for mutual recognition of family relations in the EU’ because ‘if you are parent in one country, you are parent in every country’. In its subsequent ‘Union of Equality: LGBTIQ Equality Strategy 2020–2025′ (LGBTIQ Equality Strategy), the Commission effectively committed to ‘[proposing] a horizontal legislative initiative on the mutual recognition of parenthood between Member States’.Footnote ¹⁴⁶ After an impact assessment,Footnote ¹⁴⁷ a formal proposal for a Council regulation on the cross-border recognition of parenthood was published in December 2022.Footnote ¹⁴⁸

As regards the issue of the recognition of family ties established abroad, some important developments recently occurred in the case law of the ECtHR related to the specific context of international surrogacy. In D.B. and others v Switzerland,Footnote ¹⁴⁹ the Court decided that two men who became parents through surrogacy in California, one of them providing his sperm for the conception, should be able to have their legal parenthood established in the United States recognised in Switzerland. The Court thus expanded its Mennesson approach to same-sex parents, explicitly considering that the fact that the applicants are a same-sex couple does not justify departing from the principles identified in the French case. Another, currently pending ECtHR case A.D.-K. v PolandFootnote ¹⁵⁰ also relates to the recognition of same-sex parenthood. The applicants are two women who became parents together in the UK and were registered there as the child’s ‘mother’ and ‘parent’ on the British birth certificate. They complain that the Polish authorities refused to recognise their daughter’s legal parenthood as established in the UK, insisting that the decision had an impact not only on the child’s citizenship (as one of her co-mothers is Polish) but also on her inheritance rights and, more generally, on ‘their right to be considered parents’. The facts are thus very similar to those at issue in V.M.A. and, in the light of the decision in D.B. and others, it seems likely that the court will require that parentage be recognised, except if the difference between the Swiss and the Polish contexts is considered sufficient to justify a different approach. If this is confirmed, the ECtHR will deserve to be credited for a really significant contribution to strengthening the position of international rainbow families.