Polish government’s flawed “closest person” bill vetoed by president Nawrocki. LGBT+ activists: This failure means politicians must move on to marriage

Karol Nawrocki vetoed the government’s cohabitation bill – just like he always said he would. The legislation, ironically dubbed “Roommate+” by the Polish LGBT+ community, would grant same-sex couples some significant protections while also banning them from getting married abroad and leaving their children unprotected. This is a damning indictment of the entire political class that will hopefully steer future discussions towards marriage for all.

When Donald Tusk’s government transformed the bill from its initial civil unions form into what became known as Roommate+, the queer community in Poland was extremely disappointed. The move was commonly seen as a political game between two junior coalition partners with the progressive Left trying to appease the conservative PSL (agrarian party) which deemed civil unions as encroaching upon marriage. Legislative downgrade was also explained by politicians as necessary to secure majority in the parliament and presidential consent from the very clearly anti-LGBT+ Nawrocki.

Love Does Not Exclude Association (Miłość Nie Wyklucza) criticised the bill as doomed to be vetoed and therefore needlessly insulting to the queer people living in Poland. To minimise obviously inevitable right wing backlash, the government ignored the needs of children with same-sex parents and turned the idea of civil partnerships registered during a ceremony in a public registry office into contracts signed at the notary’s.

When introducing the bill’s draft, the Left’s and PSL’s representatives praised it as complex, dignified and – perhaps most infuriatingly – created for “people living in informal relationships” with no mention of the LGBT+ community’s 20-years-long fight for family protections. Same-sex couples were pushed back into the closet for the non-existent chance right wing politicians wouldn’t notice them with this new wording. In the past, straight couples that chose not to marry have been cited as a target demographic of the legislation, but not to this degree.

Love Does Not Exclude Association argued that Nawrocki’s inevitable veto changed the bill’s nature from practical to symbolic. The government had – and rejected – one last chance to present a marriage bill to show same-sex couples and their families that their love, dignity and commitment are real and deserve to be recognised through marriage. The bill wouldn’t pass but the gesture would serve as an apology. 

We see this story as a lesson for the entire political class of Poland and an opportunity for our community.

After two decades of failed attempts to introduce civil partnerships and cohabitation laws, Polish politicians across the spectrum need to admit their cowardice and conservatism halted any progress in human rights of Polish queer people. Right-wing MPs are responsible for rejecting all these drafts and Nawrocki is responsible for vetoing the single bill that got the parliament’s approval. However, it is the centrists who continuously hold back the debate on same-sex relationship legislation, lagging behind the enormous increase in public support for marriage equality (54 percent in 2025). 

The bill introduced by Tusk’s government is less robust than drafts rejected by the parliament a decade ago, let alone Love Does Not Exclude’s own same-sex marriage bill introduced and ignored by the parliament in 2020. Polish politicians are stuck in the past.

Meanwhile, because of the rulings of the European Court of Justice and Poland’s Supreme Administrative Court, Polish clerks have started issuing marriage certificates to same-sex couples who married abroad. Some protections, such as extending one’s health insurance to their spouse, have been made available to them. Several couples are fighting to have their marriages recognised by the tax authorities and it is likely they will eventually win their cases in courts. Talking about these developments, Polish society debates same-sex marriage and journalists use the term “marriage equality”. 

Bargaining with right wing politicians simply does not work in human rights. Neither does starting negotiations with preemptive concessions. Polish same-sex couples and their families need marriage equality to be able to live in Poland safely, with dignity and hope. Politicians must recognise this or lose credibility, especially considering the dozens of same-sex marriage already recognised by Poland and granted partial marital protections. 

Some time in the future, when Poland finally elects a government capable of real change along with a president whose main focus isn’t breaking records of the number of vetoed bills, we will return to the government officials with our draft on marriage equality in hand. By then, the idea of proposing anything less than equality must become unacceptable. 

This way, today’s veto can be a crucial step towards introducing same-sex marriage legislation in Poland. Let this be the end of a chapter, the last failed attempt signaling to politicians a necessary change in approach.

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Love Does Not Exclude Association (Stowarzyszenie Miłość Nie Wyklucza, “MNW”) is a non-governmental organisation campaigning for marriage equality in Poland since 2013. MNW drafted civil partnership and marriage equality legislation, does research and advocacy work for LGBT+ people and their families in Poland. The association developed the Warsaw LGBT+ Declaration and initiated a coalition whose efforts resulted in a European Court of Human Rights ruling confirming Poland’s duty to recognise the rights of same-sex couples and their families.