The free movement of persons that we are discussing here is one of the core principles of the European Union, and it is odd that we are still having all manner of differences of opinion about it. The present labour market and the opportunities for study and enjoying your retirement in a country other than the one you come from call for Europe to have flexible rules. They should not hinder anyone unnecessarily. It nevertheless looks as if the Commission wants to exclude a significant group of citizens from this right, namely those citizens who want to take their families with them to another country but who are unmarried or in a registered partnership that is not recognised in the other country. For example, a French woman who is in a registered partnership cannot take the man or woman of her dreams with her to Italy because there is no such thing as a registered partnership there. Mr Pirker says that is a minor detail; to me it looks like a disaster. Even two men or two women who were married in the Netherlands or in Belgium cannot go to Greece together if one of them is going to work there. Imagine what it must feel like. In the Commission’s proposal, family members can only accompany people going to another country if they are spouses in a heterosexual marriage or if they are unmarried partners and the host country equates these couples with married partners. This approach, however, results in discrimination on the basis of nationality, something that was prohibited in the European Union a long time ago. It is an odd matter that we have to fix. A number of fellow MEPs and myself have therefore submitted amendments to introduce the system of mutual recognition in this area, and these have also been accepted in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs. This system ensures that all possible forms of relationship are mutually recognised by the Member States. Marriage, the registered partnership and also the de facto partnership – irrespective of their composition, in other words, irrespective of sex. Incidentally, we are not only talking about same-sex couples; a growing number of men and women choose not to marry and prefer to cohabit but without losing all their rights. Fortunately there are already eight Member States who enable their citizens to do so. This freedom of choice must not, however, be lost when these citizens cross the border. I am therefore pleased that the vast majority of this Parliament appears to support the application of the principle of mutual recognition in this area. This is a big step forward and augurs well for the coming discussions with the Council. So if that is the case, why does my group want to retain the phrase ‘irrespective of sex’? The reason for this is that our friends in the Group of the have not been able to agree whether they are indeed willing to apply this principle of mutual recognition across the board, in other words including relationships, marriage relationships and non-marriage relationships between persons of the same sex from those countries where they are legally permitted. To us, partial equality is no equality at all. Given this doubt, there can be no harm in promoting the rights of homosexual men and women a little more in the meantime. In that respect I can only underline what Mr Cashman said, and I therefore hope that our friends in the Group of the will be able to take the chill out of the air in the next phase of this stage in the legislation.

Political group: PSE