Same-sex marriage in Belgium Same-sex marriage in Belgium On 1 June 2003, Belgium became the second country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage, after the Netherlands. "Statutory cohabitation", open to any two legally consenting cohabiting persons, is also possible since 1 January 2000. In 1995, a bill was introduced in Parliament to provide for a legal framework of "cohabitation agreements". It was mostly intended as a response to the lowering marriage rates, rather than giving rights to same-sex couples. In 1998, the bill was changed to "statutory cohabitation" (; ; ) and finally voted on. The Chamber of Representatives approved it by a
Recognition of same-sex unions in Greece allowing the registration of same-sex relationships soon. In February 2013, Minister of Justice Antonis Roupakiotis stated that the Government considers amending the cohabitation agreement law to include same-sex couples. On 7 November 2013, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled in "Vallianatos and Others v. Greece" that excluding same-sex couples from cohabitation agreements is discriminatory. On 12 November, PASOK announced its intention to introduce a bill extending the cohabitation agreement law to same-sex couples. In November 2014, it was announced that many major changes to Greece's Family Law would be considered, the most prominent being the extension of cohabitation