Romania is not yet ready for Bucharest to legalize same-sex partnerships as required by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the country’s social democrat prime minister Marcel Ciolacu has said. “Romanian society is not ready for a decision at this moment. We will see,” Ciolacu told the local radio station Europa FM.
The topic surfaced again in public discussion after Foreign Minister Luminița Odobescu recently asked the government to communicate its decision on whether to comply with the EHCR’s ruling from earlier this year, given the approaching deadline, Euractiv wrote on Monday, November 27th.
As we reported back in May 2023, the Court judged that Romania’s lack of civil partnerships for homosexual couples violates the European Convention on Human Rights, ruling that Bucharest has until March 25th, 2024, to present the steps taken to address the issue before the Council of Europe (CoE).
In his interview last week, PM Ciolacu said it was not among the government’s priorities to adhere to that deadline, but refused to say whether the country will comply with the ruling eventually.
“I have friends who are in relationships with other men. I have no problem. But I am speaking now from the point of view of the prime minister,” Ciolacu said. “It’s not one of my priorities, and I don’t think Romania is ready now.”
In a 2018 referendum, the vast majority of voters (98.4%) rejected the idea of same-sex civil partnerships, although the turnout did not reach the required threshold to enshrine the prohibition of such unions in the country’s constitution.
While no top official challenged the ECHR ruling directly, many—including President Klaus Iohannis—warned that introducing same-sex partnerships was “a complicated issue” in the country, hinting that the court’s deadline is unrealistic.
Other critics called the ruling undemocratic and questioned the Court’s legitimacy, given that the right to civil unions among same-sex couples “is not explicitly nor implicitly guaranteed as a fundamental right” by the Convention. Romanian MEP Cristian Terheș (ECR) told The European Conservative:
By establishing new rights through its jurisprudence, the ECHR is imposing these rights on sovereign states, disregarding the will of the people. This trend of exceeding its jurisdiction, shared by other courts like the European Court of Justice (ECJ), represents a severe threat to democracy that needs to be addressed.
By positioning itself as a law-making authority—in clear contradiction with democratic principles—the ECHR has established a way to pressure any CoE members into passing certain legislation, effectively disenfranchising its voters and undermining the sovereignty of democratic institutions.
Currently, around one-third of CoE member states do not recognize same-sex civil unions, including six EU member states (Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Poland, and Romania), who can be expected the be the first to be targeted by similar ECHR rulings in the future.
