EU Parliament with the Commission: parenthood to be recognized in all member states, against discrimination

Brussels – MEPs have taken the first step, but now everything is in the hands of the 27 EU governments. With a large majority in favor, the EU Parliament backed the Commission’s proposal for a Regulation to certify recognition of parenthood throughout the Union—regardless of the sexual orientation of the parents and the way the children were conceived—to end discrimination in member countries.

Today’s (Dec. 14) vote at the plenary session in Strasbourg certified the European Parliament’s support for the proposed law on the recognition of parenthood throughout the EU even when only one member provides for it. With 366 votes in favor, 145 against, and 23 abstentions, MEPs made it clear that the goal is to ensure that children enjoy the same rights under national laws in education, health care, custody, and inheritance. “No child should be discriminated against because of the family they belong to or the way they were born,” stressed
forcefully the rapporteur Maria-Manuel Leitão-Marques (S&D) after the plenary vote: “Currently from a legal point of view children can lose their parents when they enter another member state: this is unacceptable.” Following the proposal submitted a year ago by the von der Leyen cabinet, MEPs do not intend to change national family laws (for example, each state will still be able to decide for itself whether to recognize surrogacy). But the real difference is the fact that no one will any longer be able to refuse to recognise parenting established by another EU country, regardless of how the girl or boy was conceived or what kind of family they have. The only scenario in which parenting may not be recognized is if it is “manifestly incompatible” with public policy, but these “narrowly defined” cases will have to be considered individually “to ensure that there is no discrimination,” as with children of same-sex parents.

Today, two million children on EU territory can potentially find themselves in a situation where their parents are not recognized as such in another member state, for example in the case of the parent-child relationship of Lgbtq+ families. For this reason, the Commission’s proposal endorsed by the European Parliament also calls for the introduction of the European Parenting Certificate, which would facilitate the reduction of bureaucracy and facilitate the recognition of parenthood throughout the European Union. “While not replacing national documents, it may be used in their place and will be accessible in all EU languages and electronic format,” the MEPs specify. The real problem, however, begins now that the dossier will go to the Council, where the 27 governments will have to give the final version of the rules the unanimous green light. While the new Polish government of Donald Tusk might be good news for one less hurdle on the road to approval, there remains the Hungarian (and other) stumbling block where the rights of the Lgbtq+ community have long been going through the wringer for the extremist positions of Viktor Orbán‘s government.