Use of the Europeanization Frame in Same-Sex Partnership Issues across Europe

Abstract

This chapter explores the content and use of the Europeanization frame in policy documents on same-sex partnerships in the European Union (EU-27) and two candidate countries, Croatia and Turkey, in the period from 1995 to 2007.¹ Issues related to intimate citizenship — a concept defined by Ken Plummer as a ‘new set of claims around the body, the relationship and sexuality’ (1996, p. 47) — have (re)emerged on the political agenda of European countries in the past 15 years. The debates on legal regulations of same-sex partnerships achieve the greatest resonance in this context, although other issues, such as sexuality, reproductive capacities, (new) living arrangements, (new) families, ethics of care, and questions about identities, are also involved. All of these debates are informed by the fact that certain groups within a political community, although they have the formal status of citizenship, still suffer inequality and exclusion based on an unjust distribution of not only economic, but also symbolic, social, political, and cultural rights. The resulting intimate citizenship claims therefore do not only envisage new morals, establishing themselves through tensions with traditional values, but also present a frame for a new politics of intimacy which, in turn, is reflected in a broadening of the scope of citizenship rights. The specific citizenship rights and their content are determined by each political entity, which, as Marshall (1994 [1950]) pointed out, constructs an image of its own ideal citizen.