Estonia’s parliament today approved a law to legalize same-friend marriages, making the country the first in central Europe to do so.

Same-sex marriage is legal in much of western Europe, but not in central European countries, which were once under communist rule and were members of the Moscow-led Warsaw Pact alliance, but are now members of NATO and in their EU majority.

“My message (to central Europe) is that this is a difficult battle, but marriage and love is something that someone has to promote,” Prime Minister Kaya Kalas told Reuters after the vote.

“We have evolved a lot in the 30 years since we were freed from Soviet occupation. We are equal among countries with the same values,” he added.

The draft law was passed by 55 votes in the 101-seat parliament, from the alliance of liberal and social democratic parties that Kalas has brought together after her strong victory in the 2023 elections.

The law will be implemented from 2024.

In the largely secular Baltic nation of 1.3 million people, 53 percent of the population favored same-sex marriage in a 2023 poll by the Center for Human Rights. A decade ago the corresponding figure was 34%.

However, 38% of Estonians still consider homosexuality unacceptable. Same-sex marriage is opposed by the ethnic Russian minority, which makes up a quarter of citizens, with only 40% of those citizens in favor.

Gay people in Estonia tend to remain discreet about their sexual identity, and half have experienced harassment in the recent past, according to the government.

“This was a good opportunity for the government because public opinion on same-sex marriage has become positive and after this year’s election it outnumbers the conservative opposition,” says Tomas Tzermalavicius, the head of the International Centre. for Defense and Security.

In Latvia and Lithuania, two other Baltic countries that were annexed by the Soviet Union in the past, same-sex marriage bills are stuck in their parliaments.