The EU wants You!

Original source: commissionefesta.altervista.org

European Alternatives takes part in the Consultation of the European Commission on  the Green Paper “Less bureaucracy for citizens: promoting free movement of public documents and recognition of the effects of civil status records“, to advocate for all types of exising civil unions and marriages between same-sex couples to be recognised across the EU.??

This is not a call for an imposition of same-sex marriages on all member states, but a first step in regulating and harmonizing the rights of existing same sex couples, who do not fully benefit from the fundamental rights guaranteed to them as EU citizens.??

In the EU, 17 out of 27 countries regulate unions between same-sex couples providing them with different rights, but the majority of these people are unable to claim their fundamental rights of movement, settlement or work when moving to the remaining ten countries.  Even within these 17 countries, recognition of these different forms of union sis not automatic and communitarian, but based on a series of bi-lateral agreement, often in conflict one with the other. We are asking the Commission to enforce what already expressed by Commissioner Viviane Reading and by a vote of the European Parliament: each member of the EU must recognize all forms of unions and marriages recognised in any other member state.??

Our aim is to solicit improvements of the present discriminations that same-sex couples are facing, for example the right of establishment in another EU Member State and the freedom to seek employment in any Member State, which are at peril in those countries who are refusing to recognise couples in marriages and civil unions. This constitutes a violation of fundamental freedom and rights contained in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.??

European Alternatives believes that the mutual recognition of all types of unions is an unavoidable and necessary first step towards greater rights for LGBT citizens, particularly in this period of economic distress, which forces many people to move around Europe in search of employment.??

Send the Eu Commission a letter, it is just a click far from here