Andorra legalises same-sex marriage in landmark win for LGBTQ+ rights

The country's amended Family Code also regulates the process of legally changing gender and name for trans people.

Top News . Written by Alice Linehan.

Andorra flag waving on a pole.
Image: Pexels

From today, February 17, same-sex marriage is officially legal in Andorra. This comes as a result of the new amendments to the state’s Family Code taking effect, changes that were approved by the General Council on July 21, 2022.

After the parliament voted to open civil marriage to same-sex couples, the law was promulgated by one of the Co-Princes of Andorra, Emmanuel Macron, on August 17, 2022. While stable unions for gay and lesbian partners were first introduced in the nation in 2005, and civil unions later enacted in 2014, this latest legislative change establishes full marriage equality for all couples in Andorra.

Prior to the vote in the summer of last year, President of Andorra’s Democratic Parliamentary Group, Carles Enseñat, described the updated Family Code as “a law for everyone” and “a law of a modern country that ensures the free development of citizenship and bases its success on the most primordial organisational nucleus, the family, with all its diversity.”

As well as granting marriage equality, the amended Family Code also regulates the process of legally changing gender and name for trans people in Andorra, with Enseñat adding that the absence of these rights previously “was not normal, nor fair, nor dignified”. 

“The Code had to resolve this grievance and it had to do so with guarantees,” he said.

Andorra is the latest country to achieve marriage equality, with Slovenia also doing so earlier this month. The latter country made history on February 1, becoming the first Eastern European nation to legalise same-sex marriage.

Upon the amended Family Code coming into effect in Slovenia, President Nataša Pirc Musar expressed, “Human rights are neither left nor right. They are universal and we all have them.”

He continued by saying he was “happy and proud” to be able to introduce the legislation for same-sex partners.

19 European countries have achieved marriage equality to date, namely Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

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