On 18 May, Michal Sabo of Progressive Slovakia, a member of the National Council, announced that he intends to seek recognition in Slovakia of his marriage to Michal Sefcik, contracted in Hainburg, Austria. He is basing his case on a ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) of 25 November 2025.
According to that ruling, EU member states are obliged to recognize the marriage of same-sex EU citizens contracted in another member state. It was the first time the CJEU had ruled in this way. The case, known as the Trojan case, involved a Polish couple whose German marriage certificate had been refused recognition by regional authorities in Warsaw.
The Polish Court Complies
The two Polish citizens had married in Berlin in 2018 and subsequently sought recognition of their marriage in their home country. Article 18 of the Polish constitution states that "marriage as a union of a woman and a man, family, motherhood and parenthood are under the protection and care of the Republic of Poland".
The registry office cited a further obstacle: its marriage certificate forms contained only pre-printed male and female fields, leaving no provision for a same-sex union. The couple appealed, but the Supreme Administrative Court in Warsaw upheld the refusal on 8 November 2023 and referred the case to the CJEU in Luxembourg.
Following the European court's ruling last November, the case was referred back to the Polish court in Warsaw, which issued a final, amended judgment annulling both the previous ruling and the original decision of the registry office. The registry head was ordered to recognize the German marriage certificate within 30 days. On 14 May, it was.
The court's reasoning rested on EU rules governing freedom of movement and residence, as set out in a 2004 directive. Refusing to recognize the marriage, it found, effectively prevented the couple from exercising those rights on the same terms as other EU citizens moving between member states.
Not Quite the First, but Far from the Last
On 14 May, Jakub Cupriak confirmed on social media that the Warsaw registry office had transcribed the couple's German marriage certificate into the Polish civil register. The details of one partner had been entered in the "man" box and the other in the "woman" box - "the most reasonable solution", he wrote, given the current legal situation.
The Trojan couple are widely reported as the first recognized same-sex married couple in Poland, but the first court ruling ordering recognition of a foreign same-sex marriage came earlier, from the Voivodeship Administrative Court in Olsztyn. Two weeks before the Supreme Administrative Court in Warsaw, that court overturned a registry office's refusal to register the German marriage certificate of two Poles living in Germany, also citing a European court ruling. Whether the registry office subsequently completed the transcription is not known.
The Trojan case is not an isolated development. More than ten same-sex couples are expected to have their foreign marriages recognized in Poland by the end of May, among them a female couple married in Portugal: Alicja and Jolanta Sienkiewicz-Prochowicz, who were registered in Gdansk in May.
A Scrap of Paper
The question of recognizing same-sex marriages is also beginning to divide Poland's ruling coalition, though the issue is likely to become more acute as the country approaches parliamentary elections in November 2027.
Rafal Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw and a member of the ruling Civic Platform party, has said the city will process transcriptions primarily in cases where courts have issued specific rulings but also in comparable cases without rulings, on the basis of the court practice now established.
Ordo Iuris, a conservative legal group, along with opposition parties and the president's office, have criticized the decisions of both the European court and the Polish authorities as unconstitutional.
Michal Jan Wawer of the opposition Confederation party, speaking during a televised debate, was more direct: "This is one big violation of the constitution, which will simply have to be abolished after the change of government. All these transcriptions will be worth as much as the paper they were written on."
Wawer also argued that the European court had exceeded its jurisdiction by ruling on a matter outside EU competence and was not, in any case, a source of law in Poland.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk told a council of ministers on 12 May that he would personally oversee compliance with the rulings of both the European and Polish courts, describing the matter as a rule of law issue.
"First and foremost, then, it is a question of the rule of law. Even more so, it is also a question of human dignity and human rights", Tusk said, acknowledging that the issue divided his own cabinet. From May 2026, it appears, Polish registry offices will begin transcribing foreign same-sex marriages, giving them legal standing under Polish law.
Ukraine Takes a Different Path
ILGA-Europe, a Brussels-based non-profit, publishes an annual index measuring the legal and policy environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people across Europe. In the most recent edition, Spain, Malta, Iceland, Belgium and Denmark occupy the top five positions.
Poland ranks 39th, the third lowest position among EU member states, ahead only of Bulgaria and Romania. Slovakia fares somewhat better at 35th, just behind San Marino, though Italy, Lithuania and Hungary rank lower than Slovakia as well.
In late February and March 2026, several outlets reported that Ukraine's Supreme Court had recognized the first marriage of two men. Euronews published a clarifying article on 11 March, explaining that the court had in fact recognized two Ukrainian citizens who have lived together since 2013 as a de facto family unit.
The ruling did not change Ukraine's legal position on same-sex unions. As Euronews noted, the proceedings had been initiated for a practical reason - one of the couple, a Ukrainian MP, needed to travel abroad on official business - and the court's finding fell well short of any recognition of same-sex marriage or registered partnership.
Article 51 of the Ukrainian constitution is explicit: "Marriage is based on the free consent of a woman and a man. Each of the spouses has equal rights and duties in marriage and family."
The controversy surrounding the court ruling ultimately prompted an amendment to the Civil Code, passed on 28 April, which states that a same-sex couple cannot be recognized as a family in Ukraine, even by court decision.
The bill passed with 231 votes in favor, one against, ten abstentions and 76 MPs not voting. Critics have warned that the amendment will complicate Ukraine's path toward European Union membership.
The Ukrainian parliament is also considering a bill that would introduce liability for what the legislature describes as the promotion of deviations from constitutional norms on family, childhood, motherhood and fatherhood. The legislation would also restrict LGBTI and gender advocacy.