Parliament passes registered partnership
A law that came too early and stayed anyway: how Hungary passed registered partnership in 2007.
On 17 December 2007, the Hungarian parliament passed a law that made people sit up far beyond Budapest. In future, couples would be able to register their relationship as a registered partnership, both same-sex and different-sex couples. It had been introduced by the government of Socialists and Liberals under Ferenc Gyurcsány. The majority held, if not by a wide margin.
The partnership was to include almost all the rights of marriage, from inheritance to taxation. Adoption and a shared family name remained excluded. For the region, this was a remarkable step. In Central and Eastern Europe, only the Czech Republic and Slovenia had anything comparable at the time.
Yet the law never came into force. A year later, shortly before its planned start, the Constitutional Court declared it unconstitutional. The reasoning was surprising: for heterosexual couples, the partnership merely duplicated marriage. A solution solely for same-sex couples, on the other hand, was permissible and even required.
The government responded quickly. In the spring of 2009, parliament passed a new version, this time exclusively for same-sex couples. Since July 2009, they have been able to register in Hungary, and the Constitutional Court later expressly upheld the law.
After that, the wind turned. The Orbán government's constitution, in force since 2012, defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman. In the years that followed, further restrictions on queer people were added. But registered partnership has remained. By the end of 2025, almost eighteen hundred couples had opted for it, and the number has been rising for years.
So 17 December 2007 tells of a beginning that initially failed and yet left traces that still hold today.