- The European Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) has adopted an opinion on draft legislation to facilitate the recognition of parenthood in the European Union.

- The draft introduces an obligation for EU countries to mutually recognise judgments establishing parenthood.

- Adoption of the regulation would mean that Poland could be required to accept adoptions made in other countries by same-sex couples.

- The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Bulgaria's failure to institutionalize same-sex unions violates the right to respect for family and private life.

- Bulgaria is the next country after Italy, Ukraine, Romania and Russia to be forced by the ECHR to institutionalize same-sex unions. 

- The Court leaves states free only to choose the form of institutionalization - same-sex unions do not have to be called "marriages."

· A conference was held today at the European Parliament in Brussels. "Let's stop child trafficking."

· The event was organized by MEP Alessandra Basso, in cooperation with the Italian organization Pro Vita&Famiglia.

· The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Romania violated the right to respect for private and family life of 21 same-sex couples who complained that their cohabitation could not be formalized.

· The complainants demanded payment of more than half a million euros in compensation for the "psychological suffering" involved.

· The Court ruled on the violation, but refused to award compensation.

· The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has dismissed complaints against decisions by German civil registry offices that refused to enter information on birth certificates that did not conform to the biological sex of two people.

· The first case involved a woman who changed her metric sex from female to male on her documents and began hormone therapy. After stopping the therapy, she gave birth to a child conceived through in vitro fertilization.

· The European Court of Human Rights has dismissed the complaint of a French man suffering from hermaphroditism who demanded that a notation of "neutral" or "intersex" gender be entered on his birth certificate.

· The courts refused, pointing out that his request was essentially a demand for the establishment of a "third gender," while French law only recognizes male and female sex.