Same-sex marriage in Belgium 14 December and published on 23 December 1999 made the Act of statutory cohabitation go into effect on 1 January 2000. During 1999, the PS (French-speaking Social Democrats) and Ecolo (French-speaking Greens) also announced they agreed to legalise same-sex marriage. At that point, the only remaining party in Government that opposed same-sex marriage was the French-speaking liberal PRL (later merged into MR), mainly because it was opposed to adoption rights for same-sex couples. PRL agreed not to block same-sex marriage if adoption rights are excluded. As the first same-sex marriage in the Netherlands was performed on 1 April 2001, the
Recognition of same-sex unions in Europe recognise some form of civil union, namely Andorra, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Slovenia, and Switzerland. Poland recognises cohabitation for very limited purposes. Armenia and Estonia recognise same-sex marriages performed in any foreign jurisdiction where they are permitted, and Slovakia recognises same-sex marriages performed within the EU and including an EU citizen. Of the countries that recognise and perform same-sex marriages some still allow couples to enter civil unions, e.g. Benelux countries, France and the United Kingdom, whereas Germany, Ireland and the Nordic countries have terminated their pre-marriage civil union legislation so that