The new EU treaties introduce equality mainstreaming with respect also to sexual orientation in all Union activities, attach the same legal value to the Fundamental Rights Charter (probiting sexual orientation discrimination) as to the Treaties and offers potential for recognition on same-sex marriages, registered partnerships and rainbow-families in crossborder-cases. ECSOL has elaborated a fact-sheet on these important progress in Union law.
Factsheet

The Supreme Court of Slovenia has upheld a US ruling which allowed a gay couple with dual US-Slovenian citizenship to adopt a girl in America, making the couple the girl's legal parents in Slovenia as well.

The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (http://fra.europa.eu) accepted the European Commission on Sexual Orientation Law (ECSOL) as a member of its Fundamental Rights Platform. The Fundamental Rights Platform (FRP) (http://fra.europa.eu) is a network for cooperation and information exchange, set to act as the main channel for FRA's cooperation with civil society and to ensure a close cooperation between the Agency and relevant stakeholders.

Today the plenary session of the European Parliament adopted reports on the accession to the European Union for Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Turkey. All three reports call on candidate countries to provide genuine protection to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender minorities, and remind candidate countries that the protection of all minorities is a non-negotiable condition to access the European Union.