EU Family Policies between Domestic ‘Good Old Values' and Fundamental Rights: The Case of Same-Sex Families

Abstract

Recent European Union action has shown a clear impact on various areas that touch upon family matters and family law, such as free movement, immigration, and asylum on the one hand, and divorce, parental responsibility, maintenance, and property relations on the other. Research has shown that in today's Europe, families split up more easily than before, people cohabit, they become parents or even single parents outside marriage, and same-sex partners can marry and adopt children in some countries. This article, while providing an overview of older and newer EU measures that have an impact on lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) partnerships and families, highlights patterns of continuing exclusion, as well as possible solutions. It focuses on the developments that followed the adoption of the 2004 Hague Programme, and on the direction that EU law has taken since. Family issues are sensitive matters and entail the risk that Member States use discussion of such matters in order to boost national rhetoric on ‘good old values’. This article argues that the connections between free movement, EU citizenship and the general principle of equal treatment should be seen not only as a central concern for the individuals directly affected, but also as a test case for assessing the extent to which the EU can truly affirm the supremacy of certain fundamental rights that it claims to recognize.