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 Italy Others v. Italy", ruled that Italy violated the European Convention on Human Rights by not recognising same-sex couples' right to family life. On 7 October 2015, a bill establishing same-sex civil unions and gender-neutral cohabitation agreements was submitted to Parliament. It had its first reading in the Senate on 14 October 2015. Although Berlusconi, leader of the opposition party Forza Italia, declared his support for both the recognition of same-sex couples and stepchild adoption, many MPs from his party criticised or opposed the bill. However, despite having a free vote, Renzi wanted the bill to be approved as soon as