That’s very odd, because i think it was the hungarian Supreme court that gave gay people some sort of partnership rights to begin with.

No, the Hungarian Supreme Court nor a lower court made that ruling. The the Registered Partnership Act was approved by the Hungarian Parliament.

From 1 January 2009 lesbian and gay couples would have had almost identical rights as married heterosexual couples in common law. Some exceptions being the right to adopt, access to fertility treatment and the right to take their partner’s surname.

I’m not familiar with Hungary’s constitution so I don’t know what the “special protection under the constitution” is for marriage that the Hungarian Supreme Court used to rule same-sex marriage unconstitution but domestic-partnerships which only allow some rights constitution.

This situation seems to be similar to lines of distinction that Ireland has been trying to draw based on the Irish constitution. Although, admittedly, not as extreme as that of Hungary.

“Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.”

Horst Schalk and Johann Kopf argued that Austria has violated their right to a private and family life and their right to marry.

Article 12 states:

“Men and women of marriageable age have the right to marry and to found a family, according to the national laws governing the exercise of this right.”

Article 14 provides for non-discrimination.

Family law remains a matter for the member states and not the EU. At present some EU nations, such as Spain and Belgium, and others as pointed out allow same-sex marriages or some other arrangement.

A declaration could be drawn up but it would require 50% of all MEPs to sign before it could be adopted as a resolution.

However, any EU-wide agreement on the issue of same-sex recognition would require a consensus among the 27 member states.

Given the positions of some states like Latvia, Poland, Lithuania, an EU-wide agreement would be unlikely.

Also, any current member who disagrees with an EU law can withdraw their membership in order having to implement such a law.

In October Vladimir Spidla, the EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, said that it is up to individual member states whether or not to legally recognise gay and lesbian relationships.

“Within European legislation we have gone as far as we can go. If a state accepts the equality of these relationships then that state cannot discriminate. And there are already some infringement procedures against some states on this matter.

“However, whether the state accepts these unions or not is a basic national competence. And we don’t interfere with that.

“I think that we found the best possible balance in the proposal of the directive.

“These are national competences over things that are very sensitive and which are not the subject of European legislation so we preserve them in that way …

So, while Horst Schalk and Johann Kopf v Austria may influence/inform what Austria does based on its own laws it wouldn’t force other nations to do so. That is, it wouldn’t make “moot” any/all individual national laws and require all nations to offer same-sex marriage or convert the French PAC, for example, to a marriage.

This is not the same as the pressure to get countries to recognize another country’s arrangment; i.e., France recognizing Britian’s Civil Union arrangement as does Britian’s recognition of a PAC which is what Spidla was alluding to regarding discrimination and “infringement procedures against some states on this matter”.

BTW: Neither Russia nor Turkey are EU member states although Turkey has been trying to become a member since the 80′s.

Just as a note of interst, Norway is also not a member as their electorate has voted against joining.

UK has civil unions – nearly equivalent to marriage
Germany has Life Partnerships – some rights but less than Civil Unions.
Austria has Unregistered Cohabitation which has even fewer rights.
France has PACS, the least of all options.
Of course, Turkey and Russia have nothing at all.