Same-sex couples granted with same pensions as traditional ones

EU nations that recognize same-sex unions as legal marriages must grant surviving partners the same pension rights as given to those in traditional marriages, the EU Court of Justice ruled Tuesday.

The Luxembourg-based court ruling was seen as a victory for a German man who was denied his partner's retirement plan payments after his partner died in 2005.

The EU court said pension plan had discriminated against the man on the grounds of sexual orientation because the men's relationship had been recognized under German law as a legally registered life partnership equivalent to a traditional marriage.

The court did not say, however, that all 27 EU nations must recognize same-sex unions, only that if they did they must grant life partners the same benefits.

Today, about a dozen EU nations either do not recognize same-sex partnerships at all, including Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, according to the European branch of the International Lesbian and Gay Association.

France and Italy grant them very limited rights, the group said. But elsewhere in the EU _ notably in the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden _ life partnerships have acquired considerably social rights in the last 20 years.