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
Same-sex marriage in Malta it was unknown whether this would be in the form of unregistered cohabitation or registered partnership. National Action supported civil partnerships that would grant to same-sex couples some of the rights extended to married couples, not including welfare benefits. Democratic Alternative/Greens supported civil partnerships providing all of the rights of marriage. On 28 March 2010, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi announced that the Government was working on a bill to regulate cohabitation, intended to be completed by the end of the year. The draft bill (known as the "Civil Partnerships and Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Bill 2012") was presented by