Polish government proposes new rights for unmarried partners, including same-sex couples

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Poland’s ruling coalition has presented a bill that would allow unmarried partners, including same-sex couples, to sign an agreement granting them certain rights.

The proposal represents a compromise within the ruling coalition, where more liberal and conservative elements have failed to agree on a bill to introduce civil partnerships. The new measures are also designed to be acceptable to conservative President Karol Nawrocki, who is aligned with the right-wing opposition.

On Friday, four figures from The Left (Lewica) and the Polish People’s Party (PSL) – respectively the most left- and right-wing elements of the coalition – presented details of a proposed “law on the status of the closest person”.

“We’ve found a compromise,” said PSL leader and deputy prime minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz. “This bill is an example of agreement beyond divisions and proof that cooperation is possible. It is a bill that helps Poles – it gives them security, access to information, and certainty in difficult times.”

“After many months of talks, we have succeeded, we met PSL halfway,” wrote The Left on social media. “We know that this is not everything we as The Left went to the elections with, but we are acting on the field that we have, with the hope that President Nawrocki will sign this bill.”

The proposed law would allow a couple to sign an agreement before a notary that would grant them certain rights and obligations in their relationship that are currently available to married couples.

Those would include exemptions from tax on inheritance and gifts between one another, the possibility to jointly file tax returns, and the right to mutually access medical information, have joint property ownership and to obtain leave from work to care for a partner.

Urszula Pasławska, a PSL MP, said the newly proposed legislation differs from a previous bill to introduce civil partnerships – which failed to pass amid disagreements between PSL and The Left – because it makes the rights and obligations optional, to be decided on by the couple concluding the agreement.

She also noted that the state “would not be a regulator” of such arrangements, but rather “an administrator of the information”. The proposals also “exclude issues related to children, such as custody or adoption”, she added.

Equality minister Katarzyn Kotula, who comes from The Left, added, however, that they are still “discussing the details” of the final shape of the bill, which she said “will be available soon”, reports Business Insider Polska.

Kotula expressed confidence that the bill would be approved by parliament, where the government has a majority, but also hope that it was written in such a way that there would be the possibility of obtaining the signature of Nawrocki, which is needed for the bill to become law.

Earlier this week, one of Nawrocki’s senior aides, Marcin Przydacz, told the Polish Press Agency (PAP), that the president is “open to discussions” over the bill if it “truly addresses the status of the closest person and is devoid of the ideological elements characteristic of the extreme left”.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk, speaking today in parliament, admitted that the bill “won’t delight anyone, neither opponents nor proponents of more progressive solutions, but it offers a glimmer of hope”.

“The fact that we managed to reconcile these extremes in the coalition in which I am prime minister and find some ground for compromise is definitely a step forward,” he added, quoted by news website Onet.

Meanwhile, one of The Left’s leaders, Robert Biedroń, said that the proposed law is “not ideal but very much needed”. He noted that he himself had long been waiting for the state to recognise his relationship with Krzysztof Śmiszek, also a politician from The Left.

“Twenty-three years. That is how long my relationship has been waiting for the state to notice us,” wrote Biedroń today on social media. “Long years of dreams and fears, because what if something happens to one of us? According to the law, we are complete strangers to each other.”

However, in a statement issued on Thursday – before the bill had been formally announced today but when the outlines of it were already clear – a leading LGBT+ rights group, Miłość Nie Wyklucza, issued a statement criticising the plans.

It noted that the proposed solutions fell short of the idea of civil partnerships promised by parties within the ruling coaltion, and also criticised Kotula and PSL politicians for failing to mention LGBT+ people at all in their announcements regarding the bill.

By contrast, after today’s announcement, Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS), Poland’s main opposition party, condemned the proposals as “ultra-leftist solutions” with the “blatantly unconstitutional aims to replace traditional marriage with pseudo-unions”.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Adrian Grycuk/Wikimedia Commons (under CC BY-SA 3.0)

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.