Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Tuesday that his government would quickly work to follow recent court rulings requiring Poland to legally recognize same-sex marriages conducted in other European Union (EU) member nations.
Recent rulings by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and Poland’s Supreme Administrative Court (NSA) both require Poland to recognize foreign same-sex marriages, after a married same-sex couple (including a Polish citizen) weren’t allowed to have their 2018 German marriage certificate entered into the Polish civil registry.
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The men challenged the denial at the NSA, which then referred the case to the CJEU. The CJEU ruled in November 2025 that the couple’s marriage was valid throughout the EU’s 27-member bloc, and that Poland could recognize their union without also altering its laws to start offering same-sex marriages.
Then, last March, the NSA ordered the government to transcribe the men’s same-sex marriage certificate into the Polish system, resulting in de facto government recognition of a same-sex couple’s marriage in the country; a historic first for Poland.
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In comments to the media before a closed cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Tusk apologized for the “years of rejection and humiliation” that same-sex couples have experienced due to Poland not legally recognizing their marriages, Notes from Poland reported.
“[This is] a matter of human dignity: the right to happiness, the right to equal treatment by the state,” Tusk said. “I would like to apologize to all those who, for many, many years, felt rejected and humiliated. For many years, the [Polish] state has failed the test.”
Tusk also said that Poland currently “lacks statutory regulations” that would ensure that same-sex couples receive the same legal and social protections as different-sex couples.
However, he said, “We have committed to – and I will personally ensure this – abiding by the rulings as a priority,” adding that any changes must be conducted in compliance with existing Polish law. He also urged government members “to respect the dignity of every human being” while figuring out and implementing new policies, some of which may require parliamentary or executive approval.
Tusk also said any legal recognition is “no way a path to the possibility of adoption.”
Karolina Gierdal, a lawyer with the Polish LGBTQ+ advocacy organization Lambda Warszawa, told TVP World, “It is sad that the LGBT community is once again presented as a threat, as if society needs reassurance that adoption rights ‘won’t happen.’ The reality is that children are already being raised in same-sex families in Poland, and maintaining the current legal situation means reducing the level of legal protection available to those children.”
Separately, Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, who is a senior figure in Tusk’s Civic Platform party (Platforma Obywatelska, PO), announced that his city would begin legally recognizing foreign same-sex marriages immediately on a municipal level, long before the national government updates its own policies.
Last month, a group of over 100 non-governmental organizations urged Poland to take action to abide by the CJEU and NSA’s rulings. The groups noted that Tusk and his party were elected to power in 2023 on promises to restore Poland’s rule of law, after 10 years of corrupt, anti-democratic rule by the country’s far-right, anti-LGBTQ+ Law and Justice Party.
“Right-wing governments have distorted what we understand by the rule of law, treating it as an empty slogan rather than a real principle of state operation,” the groups wrote. “In a democratic state governed by the rule of law, the government has no authority to decide which judgments merit enforcement.”
So far, 18 countries in the EU offer legalized same-sex marriages, though all member countries are required to legally recognize them, even if they don’t offer them to their own citizens.
While Tusk’s political party promised to work to offer national same-sex civil partnerships, the initiative died due to opposition from Poland’s center-right Polish People’s Party (PSL). A parliamentary coalition considered offering some rights to same-sex couples and unmarried partners instead, but without actually offering civil unions nationwide.
However, neither proposal has come up for a parliamentary vote.
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