Kyriakos Mitsotakis is making clear his intention to proceed – immediately – with same-sex couples’ marriage, at least according to information from the website Protothema.gr.
The official launch of the propaganda campaign is expected to begin on Wednesday, with an interview in ERT, the state-owned public television broadcaster of Greece where he will take a long position on the issue.
According to published information, the Prime Minister in his interview will outline the main pillars of the legislation that will come in the next few months, which has as its core idea the extension of the right to civil marriage for same-sex couples and the subsequent extension of the right to procreation.
In this light, under the bill a same-sex couple will be able to adopt a child from an institution, albeit with the given slow procedures, and if either spouse has a child biologically before civil marriage, then the spouse will be able to acknowledge the child. While there will be a regulatory framework to ban surrogacy.
Will there be party discipline?
What is not made clear in the report is whether Kyriakos Mitsotakis will raise the issue of party discipline, not so much for the MPs of his Party, Nea Dimokratia, as much as for government ministers when the bill makes its way through Parliament. According to Protothema.gr information, the rapporteur of the bill will be Akis Skertsos. The same report also mentions the persons who will support the bill in the public sphere: This group of ministers and associates of the Prime Minister includes government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis, the director of the Prime Minister’s press office Dimitris Tsiodras and Deputy Prime Minister Thanasis Kontogeorgis. There are also a number of ministers who have come out in favour of the bill, including Kyriakos Pierrakakis, Sofia Zacharaki, Lina Mendoni, Niki Kerameos and Domna Michaelidou. In time, this group will be joined by other ministers, such as Kostis Hatzidakis, while Dora Bakoyannis had also clearly stated her position.
There are also “blue” MPs, led by party secretary Maria Syrengela, but there are also younger generation MPs, such as State MPs Giorgos Stamatis and Nefeli Hatziioannidou, who will step forward. Finally, when the debate starts, the director of the Prime Minister’s financial office Alexis Patelis, who has been married to his partner Michalis since 2009 in London and has been in a civil partnership since 2017, will also take a stand.
