In his post, the Minister of State gives answers to three questions about the protection of children within the cohabitation agreement.

“Three questions and answers that explain why the protection of children within the cohabitation agreement is ineffective and introduces a new discrimination against them that does not ultimately protect their rights, which is the point.

1. If the problem is where the child will go if the recognized parent dies, this can also be solved with a provision that in such cases his/her partner (in a cohabitation agreement) will take over as guardian. So why is that not enough and we need to institute marriage and adoption?

Because quite simply the guardian (to be precise the commissioner, the term guardian does not exist in our law) is NOT and can never be considered a parent. Orphaned children have a commissioner, here we are talking about children who have a parent and we as a state will deprive them of him? In other words, we have a person who is already raising a child as a parent and, above all, wants to responsibly and consciously assume all the legal and essential obligations that accompany this relationship, and the state will hypocritically tell him: no, you will just be a commissioner, like be some institution? Doesn’t such logic stigmatize these children? In fact, to a child who experienced the tragic loss of one -recognized- parent, do we say that he will not have a parent at all, but a guardian? Is this in the child’s best interest? It is absurd that while there are people who want to commit themselves and marry their partner by adopting his/her child and assuming more obligations towards him/her, the State prevents him/her. Absurd, unfair and mostly hypocritical.

But let’s also look at the practical differences between guardianship and parental relationship: Guardianship does not create kinship. The child has far fewer rights vis-à-vis the trustee and this relationship ends when he reaches adulthood. So he has no right to alimony vis-à-vis the commissioner either before or after reaching adulthood (there is often such an obligation for parents, e.g. when the children are studying) or social security benefits (e.g. the child cannot be registered as an indirectly insured member in the commissioner’s insurance institution ) and of course he cannot inherit the commissioner (except by will, that is, if the commissioner so wishes, and indeed he will inherit him as an “exotic”, i.e. with multiple taxation). Is all this in the best interest of the child?

2. Okay, then why can’t a new “guardianship” relationship be established for the partner (with a cohabitation agreement) of the recognized parent, which will solve these problems?

What country in the world has solved these problems in this way? 39 countries have legislated equality in adoption, and Greece will be the only one to create a new framework, different from all other countries, original in the world?

First, if we were to establish a new “family” relationship, such as the one you propose, it would change all family law, necessarily include heterosexual couples, and create many new issues, many more than those it seeks to solve.

Also, will “guardianship” only apply after the death of the recognized parent? If so, such a “solution” does not at all solve the problems regarding the rights and obligations of the unrecognized parent, in normal circumstances, i.e. as long as the recognized parent is alive (hospital, school, accompanying in activities, no maintenance obligation in case of dissolution of the cohabitation agreement, etc.). Moreover, since such an arrangement would necessarily apply to heterosexual couples as well, it is not understandable why the other party to the cohabitation agreement should automatically become the guardian of the child when one parent dies. The child may have another parent, or other relatives that the child may go to (heterosexual couples when they want to resolve these issues enter into marriage and proceed with adoption).

If, on the other hand, the proposal is to establish a new kind of “co-guardianship” of the partner of the recognized parent (within a consensual cohabitation) while the other, recognized parent, is still alive, this on the one hand will also affect heterosexual couples, who do not it is necessarily desirable, and on the other hand, we essentially agree that we want a new legal relationship that will have exactly the same elements (rights, obligations) as the parental one, but we will name it somewhat differently. Thus, the invention of a new family legal relationship under the cohabitation pact and especially for same-sex couples intensifies the inequality experienced by the children of these families.

3. Then why don’t we just change the cohabitation agreement to allow the adoption of the partner’s child?

On the one hand, this would solve the problem of children, but it would maintain an unfair, unfair discrimination against same-sex couples, who will not be able to enter into marriage like all the rest of our fellow citizens. But it also does not answer the objections of those who are against the right of adoption arising from marriage, because it essentially reproduces them, simply within the context of the covenant.