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 Latvia registered partnerships. However, after Baltic Pride in June 2012, it was revealed that the Ministry of Justice was considering whether to recognise same-sex partnerships, either through unregistered cohabitation or registered partnership. Defence Minister Artis Pabriks indicated his support of registered partnerships. Mozaika, Latvia's largest gay rights organisation, predicted that it would take approximately five years to obtain enough political support to pass the bill. In November 2014, while commenting on the declaration by the Minister for Foreign Affairs Edgars Rinkēvičs that he is gay and on his call for recognition of same-sex relationships, Prime Minister Laimdota Straujuma reaffirmed her support