Marriage equality in Austria, automatic co-parent recognition in Finland, medically assisted procreation for lesbian couples and single women in Malta, advanced trans and intersex rights i.e. in Portugal and Luxembourg, foster care for same-sex couples in Greece, the successful Coman case before the CJEU… the rainbow families movement in Europe has achieved a lot in the past 12 months.
NELFA tries to do the best to further advance the rights of LGBTIQ* people and their children and we will continue in 2019 – for sure! The Board just sent a letter to high representatives of the EU Commission to ask for a meeting within the next months (find attached). The closer contact was possible because of our attendance at the ILGA-Europe conference in Brussels.
In the meantime, our Network counts 34 member organisations representing 27 European countries. Recently, the “Estonian LGBT Association” (Eesti LGBT Ühing) joined us as supporting member and “Accept Romania” decided do it within the next weeks. Alina Tryfonidou from Reading University in UK joined NELFA as individual supporting member and would like to offer her legal expertise.
In 2019, we want to meet again on different occasions. Perhaps, at first, at our Annual General Meeting in Helsinki, from 8-10 March. Then, we will organise the next NELFA Rainbow Families Conference in Zagreb, together with our member Dugine obitelji (probably from 10-11 May). And Barcelona Pride could be added to your agenda as well. Our NELFA member FLG invites rainbow families from all over Europe to join the celebration, especially on 28th and 29th of June. More information will come soon!
Thank you very much for all your work, your dedication, your steady support!
NELFA: Rainbow families movement in Europe has achieved a lot in 2018