A PLAN FOR all types of parents and families to be recognised across the entire EU needs to be put back on the political agenda after a series of delays from more conservative countries, Fine Gael MEP Maria Walsh has said. 

The proposed new laws would make sure that LGBTQ and single-parent families are legally recognised across every European country. Some member states, particularly those with politically conservative leaders, have pushed back on the measures.

Walsh, a MEP for Midlands-North West, says the delay with the regulations is impacting an estimated two million children around Europe. She told The Journal it is unfair that these families do not get the same recognition as others who are living, working and travelling within the EU. 

Walsh addressed the Parliament on the issue during a legislative session in Strasbourg this week.

 A lot of progressive policies – such as these regulations – have found it tough to progress in Europe over the past two decades because of the tension between more conservative eastern European nations which have joined in recent decades and the more progressive long-standing members such as France and Germany.

A recent example of this was when the EU introduced a directive to curb violence against women within its members states. Despite being the first law of its kind, some European governments, such as Spain, instructed their EU representatives to oppose a continent-wide definition of rape and consent.

Many politicians, including former Fine Gael MEP Frances Fitzgerald, said it was a significant shortfall of the law at the time.

Walsh warned against the same thing happening with the parental recognition proposals. The former Rose Of Tralee winner, who is serving a second term in Brussels, said “bending the knee” to those governments would lead to a “slippery slope”.

She added that diluting progressive legislation would cause democratic backsliding and a failure to uphold and protect the rights of EU citizens. Walsh said a ‘forceful carrot-and-stick option’ must be taken with countries such as Hungary.

Walsh suggested that European institutions need to consider their options when it comes to countries that refuse or continually opt out of co-operating with other member states on socially progressive legislation in Europe, including the withholding of funding.

“I don’t understand, in terms of the parenthood regulation, how you could just say – which I imagine Hungary is trying to do – that we can include heterosexual couples but not homosexual individuals,” she said.

Walsh added while Ireland has “decent” legislation that protects and recognises rainbow and single-parent families, the same criteria should be in place in every EU member state so that thousands of families are not “left in limbo”.

“We have a lot of work to do to figure out a way to get member states, like Hungary, to stop blocking such really important texts and to support the two million children who are currently left out,” she said.

Walsh was among the Fine Gael MEPs who previously called for the removal of voting rights for Hungary after its Prime Minister Viktor Orbán visited Ukraine, Russia and China on a so-called ‘peace mission’, claiming to be representing the EU.

Orbán, seen as Putin’s closest ally in Europe, has repeated voted against progressive legislation at the European Council and vetoed supportive statements and aid deliveries to Ukraine.

The far-right leader, who fell out with the EU after the Commission revoked funding over concerns of alleged breaches in the rule-of-law in Hungary, repeated this action at the most-recent EU summit.

The Council published its statement in support of Ukraine anyway, under a clause that all but one member state had approved the message. MEPs from a range of political parties commended the leaders for doing so in Strasbourg this week.