Europeanizing and Nationalizing the Issue of Same-sex Couples in CEE

This paper provides a comparative overview of the policy debates around the regulation of same-sex partnership in Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC). Theoretically grounded into critical frame analysis (Verloo, 2005; Lombardo & Meier, 2009) and discursive institutionalism (Schmidt, 2010; Lombardo & Forest, 2012), it will primarily draw upon the comparative analysis carried out under the QUING project (FP7, 2007-2011) to be complemented with updated data for 2012-2014 and the work of the author on the gendering of democratic transition and Europeanization in CEEC. The paper will firstly place recent developments against the background of institutional heritages from State socialism as regards the regulation of homosexuality. It will then address the different pathways for its de-penalization and/or visibilization after 1989, accounting for the first attempts to legalize same-sex couples in 1990s’ Czech Republic and Hungary. Framing the de-penalization of homosexuality as a necessary step to abolish the most authoritative features inherited from State socialism, it will argue that first liberalization measures were adopted without raising public awareness nor resolute ideological contention, with little attention for lesbian or transgender people. After a brief account of the debates on the recognition of same-sex partnership held in the region in the realm of EU-accession, it will further explore the role of Europeanization-driven vs. domestic variables by focusing on two specific countries: Croatia and Hungary. Once a forerunner in the region in recognizing same-sex partnership (formally granted in 1996 and legislated in 2007), Hungary eventually prohibited gay marriage by the new Constitution adopted in 2011 by Viktor Orban’s two-third majority, concluding a process of growing polarization. In Croatia, the legalization of same-sex partnership in 2006 intervened in a window of opportunity inaugurated by EU accession, but the prohibition of Gay-marriage by the Constitution, triggered by a referendum, coincided with joining the EU in 2013.