Equal rights for Christmas
A Christmas present from the Pyrenees: on 24 December 2014, Andorra put same-sex couples on a par with marriage.
On 24 December 2014, a law appeared in the official gazette of the Principality of Andorra that changed almost everything for same-sex couples. A day later, on Christmas Day, it took effect. Gay and lesbian couples could now enter into a "unió civil" that was equal to marriage in all its rights. Only the name remained different.
Andorra is a political curiosity. The small country in the Pyrenees, squeezed between France and Spain, has two heads of state, and neither of them lives there. One office automatically falls to the French president, the other to the Catholic Bishop of Urgell in Catalonia. So it was in a state headed by a bishop, of all places, that far-reaching equality for queer couples became law.
The country did not start from scratch. Since 2005, same-sex couples had also been able to register their relationship as a "stable partnership", though with far fewer rights. The new law went much further. It applied the rules of marriage law directly to the civil union instead of creating a separate special law. Joint adoption of children also became possible. In parliament, the Consell General, the bill won a clear majority of twenty votes to three at the end of November.
The difference in name was not without consequences, however. Abroad, Andorran unions were not always recognised as equivalent, which created uncertainty for the couples concerned. Politicians therefore made another attempt a few years later. In February 2023, marriage equality finally came into force, which now makes no difference even in name.
The Christmas law of 2014 nevertheless remains a milestone. It showed that even one of the smallest states in Europe, shaped by Catholic tradition, could find its own way to equal rights.