Cohabitation agreement

Greece's parliament on Wednesday approved in principle new legislation that grants couples with cohabitation agreements the right to foster a child.

In a separate vote, MPs approved an article that extends the right to same-sex couples.
 

Amid divisions within the ruling leftist SYRIZA party over draft legislation that aims to grant couples with cohabitation agreements, including same-sex ones, the right to foster a child, government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos insisted on Wednesday that no changes will be made to the bill.

The Holy Synod of the Church of Greece decided Friday to launch a campaign against the extension to same-sex couples of a so-called cohabitation agreement which grants heterosexual couples living together similar rights to those who are married.

A day after Archbishop Ieronymos, the head of the Church of Greece, attacked cohabitation agreements as a ?poor imitation? of marriage, Justice Minister Nikos Paraskevopoulos defended the pact as well as plans to extend it to same-sex couples.

Archbishop Ieronymos, the head of the Church of Greece, on Wednesday slammed cohabitation agreements, which grant couples living together similar rights to those who are married, describing the pact as ?a poor imitation? of marriage.

Archbishop Ieronymos, the head of the Church of Greece, on Thursday failed to back a government bill giving greater rights to gay couples, although he did not directly criticize the draft law either.

A Justice Ministry bill that was put up for public consultation on Wednesday stipulates that same-sex couples entering cohabitation agreements should have the same rights as married couples but bars them from marriage and common adoption.

The Justice Ministry is drafting a law that will allow same-sex couples to enter into a cohabitation agreement that will grant parties the same rights afforded to heterosexual couples joined by contract, Kathimerini understands.

World Marriage Day is celebrated on the second Sunday of February. The day commemorates husbands and wives as the foundation of the family and the basic unit of society and takes place a week before Valentine's Day this year.

The two parties in the ruling coalition have reached an agreement on the provisions of a contentious anti-racism bill that has divided the government for a year-and-a-half, reports said on Tuesday, with a vote on the legislation expected on August 26 and 27.