New Blow to Poland’s Marriage Equality Hopes

Poland’s conservative President Karol Nawrocki has vetoed a bill proposed by Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s centrist government legalizing civil partnerships.

The bill, first sent to parliament in December 2025, aimed to establish a “status of the closest person” available to unmarried partners, including same-sex couples.

Those unions would grant some of the rights currently reserved for married couples under Polish law: joint property rights, access to each other’s medical records, and burial rights.

Poland, alongside Bulgaria, Romania, and Slovakia, is one of the last countries in Europe not to have legalized same-sex marriage or civil unions. Poland has consistently ranked among the worst in Europe for LGBTQ rights, according to the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA).

“I have always emphasized that nothing that is a quasi-marriage can count on my support,” Nawrocki said on X.

“As the guardian of the Constitution, I cannot accept a solution that would lead to the loss of the special status of marriage defined… as a union of a woman and a man,” added the nationalist leader.

Leaders from the ruling coalition emphasized that “closest person” unions need not be between romantic partners but could also be between neighbors, friends, or family members.

To override the president’s veto, a three-fifths majority vote in the lower house of parliament would be required.

Last year, Tusk’s Pro-European Civic Coalition promised to introduce a bill legalizing civil partnerships within its first 100 days in office, if elected. Following the president’s veto, Tusk slammed it as “an expression of contempt toward people and their right to happiness and a normal life”.

Polish conservatives are closely aligned with the Catholic Church and reject LGBTQ rights as “gender ideology” disseminated by foreign influences.

But recent state research found that 62 percent of Poles were in favor of legalizing same-sex partnerships.

In vetoing the bill, Nawrocki “has turned his back on two million people living today in informal relationships”, said Katarzyna Kotula of Poland’s Left (Lewica) party, who sponsored the bill. Poland has begun recognizing same-sex marriages conducted in other European Union countries, following rulings from the European Court of Justice (ECJ), and later, its own Supreme Administrative Court.

In Poland itself, however, only marriage between two people of opposite sexes is allowed.