The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) held a hearing on Tuesday 9 February as part of case (C-490/20) involving a female couple – one Bulgarian woman and one Gibraltar-born British woman – and the municipality of Sofia, Bulgaria. The municipality had refused to issue a birth certificate for the couple’s daughter, who was born in Spain in 2019 and who might therefore find herself stateless.
The Bulgarian authorities are of the opinion that it is impossible for a same-sex couple to be registered as parents on the birth certificate.
This situation is not exceptional (see EUROPE 12599/22): the President of the European Commission herself has made a personal commitment to take measures to put an end to this.
In her first State of the Union address in September, Ursula von der Leyen promised to “push for mutual recognition of family relations in the EU” so that parents recognised as such in one Member State would be recognised as such in all 27 Member States (see EUROPE 12561/3).
As part of its strategy for the equality of LGBTIQ people presented a few weeks later, the Commission therefore made a commitment to present a legislative initiative in 2022 (see EUROPE 12600/23).
The decision of the CJEU in this case, which could result in the creation of case law, will therefore be closely scrutinised by stakeholders and is certain to prove decisive for the European Commission and its future text.
“Through this case, the CJEU has the opportunity to clarify that parentage established in one member state must be recognised across the EU [...]. As already confirmed in the Romanian Coman case, arguments on ‘constitutional identity’, namely that Bulgaria does not recognise rainbow families, cannot justify a violation of EU law”, emphasised Arpi Avetisyan, a member of the European branch of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA – EUROPE), in a statement. (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)