The Lithuanian parliament, Seimas, will not be voting on the civil unions bill on Thursday, the last day of its spring session. The legislation, which would recognise same-sex partnerships, was discussed at the parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs on Wednesday, but was not put on the plenary agenda.
Andrius Vyšniauskas, the elder of the ruling conservative group in the Seimas, confirmed it after a meeting of the coalition groups on Wednesday.
“I can confirm that there will be no such issue [on the agenda],” he said.
The Legal Affairs Committee discussed technical proposals to the bill. The move allows the bill to be sent to the plenary chamber, where it is one vote away from adoption.
“We want all proposals to be considered so that if it is necessary to move to the adoption stage in the Seimas, the Committee on Legal Affairs does not have to find extra time to sit and discuss the proposals,” Irena Haase, the conservative chair of the committee, said earlier.
According to MP Tomas Vytautas Raskevičius of the liberal Freedom Party, minor amendments to the bill concerning the deadline for its entry into force were submitted to the committee.
The civil union bill stipulated that it would enter into force on September 1, 2023, and that the government would adopt supplementary legislation by March 31, 2023.
If the amendments are approved by the Committee, it would enter into force on November 1 this year and the government would adopt the implementing legislation by October 31.
The civil union bill legally recognising gender-neutral partnerships passed its second reading in the parliament by a narrow margin in May 2023. However, the issue subsequently got stalled in the Seimas, without finding sufficient support.
Representatives of the Freedom Party have said they could see the possibility of linking the vote on the EU Commissioner’s nomination to the adoption of the civil union legislation, a signature issue on the party’s electoral platform.
However, Freedom Party leader Aušrinė Armonaitė rejected the idea that her party would leverage the EC nomination to get the civil unions bill passed.
“Civil union is not a commodity on the counter. It is a decision that the absolute majority of the European Union countries have made, and it is a decision for our people,” Armonaitė told reporters outside the government headquarters on Wednesday.
Currently, Lithuanian laws do not recognise civil unions between either same-sex or opposite-sex couples. Several previous attempts to pass the legislation fell through at an early stage of the parliamentary process.
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