Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis plans to legalise same-sex marriage in Greece, a huge step forward for LGBTQ rights.
“Same-sex marriage will happen at some point and it’s part of our strategy,” Mitsotakis said on Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Athens. “Greek society is much more ready and mature.”
Like the majority of countries in the European Union, Greece currently recognises same-sex unions in some form but stops shy of supporting full marriage.
According to bnnbloomberg.ca, Greece also saw a jump in a 2023 ranking of LGBTQ rights among European countries after the government banned genital mutilation on intersex children last year.
SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance, which legalised same-sex civil unions in 2015, commented on Mitsotakis’ latest statement.
According to amna.gr, the party said on Wednesday that Mitsotakis’ pledge to legalise same-sex marriage has arrived one year after SYRIZA’s proposal to the same effect.
The main opposition party noted that it tabled its proposal for legalising gay marriage and adoption rights in June 2022, “when Mitsotakis had said that ‘this is not the right time’.”
Together with the LGBTQI+ community, SYRIZA “will continue to exert pressure every day to see this necessary and self-evident step be immediately implemented,” it added.
LGBTQ groups in Greece have long campaigned for members of their communities to have full family rights and sought the tougher enforcement of anti-discrimination laws.
Same-sex marriage is recognised across most of western Europe, but not in Italy and Greece where civil partnerships exist, along with most other EU members in eastern Europe.
