Ukraine’s path to European Union membership involves more than economic reforms and changes to government institutions. The country must also address gaps in human rights protections, including by ensuring legal recognition of same-sex couples.

Since 2026, this requirement has been explicitly included in the EU’s accession benchmarks for Ukraine. Under interim benchmark 23.14, Ukraine must make progress on equality and non-discrimination, including implementing the 2023 European Court of Human Rights judgment that found the lack of legal recognition and protection for same-sex relationships in Ukraine discriminatory. This requires legislative changes that give same-sex relationships legal recognition and status.

But what exactly does the EU require Ukraine to change, and how could this affect its accession negotiations? The answer involves both the Court’s ruling and Ukraine’s ongoing reform of its civil legislation.

What Do the EU’s Accession Benchmarks Require of Ukraine?

The EU has set out its expectations in the accession benchmarks for Chapter 23, Judiciary and Fundamental Rights. This chapter is part of Cluster 1, Fundamentals, which covers the rule of law, democratic institutions, and the protection of fundamental rights.

The relevant benchmarks were presented to Ukraine by the EU in December 2025 and formally adopted in June 2026 as mandatory requirements within the EU accession negotiations.

Among these criteria is interim benchmark 23.14 on equality and non-discrimination. It calls on

Ukraine to make “further progress towards legislative alignment of national law with the EU acquis on equality and non-discrimination, including the ECtHR judgement of 1 June 2023, as well as on hate crime and hate speech, rights of persons with disabilities, gender equality and combating gender-based violence, procedural rights of suspects and accused persons in criminal proceedings and victims’ rights”.

The wording of interim benchmark 23.14 can be found in the English-language document on Ukraine’s EU accession benchmarks.

Why the European Court Ruled Against Ukraine

The “ECtHR judgement of 1 June 2023”, mentioned in the document, is Maymulakhin and Markiv v. Ukraine. In this case, the Court ruled that Ukraine discriminates against a same-sex couple by providing no legal means to recognise and protect their relationship.

The case of Maymulakhin and Markiv v. Ukraine began with a problem that many same-sex couples in Ukraine face: despite living together and maintaining a committed relationship, they had no way to have their partnership legally recognised. Despite their family-like nature, relationships between same-sex partners have no legal consequences for the couple, unlike heterosexual couples, whose relationships have legal consequences even when they are not formally married.

The applicants, Andriy Maymulakhin and Andriy Markiv, challenged this lack of recognition before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). On 1 June 2023, the Court ruled in their favour, finding that Ukraine had violated Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits discrimination, in conjunction with Article 8, which protects private and family life.

• The Court reaffirmed that “sexual orientation is a concept covered by Article 14” of the Convention and that, when people are treated differently on this basis, “the State’s margin of appreciation is narrow” (§ 62).
• The Court stressed that “same-sex couples are just as capable as different-sex couples of entering into stable, committed relationships” (§ 63) and have comparable needs for mutual support, legal recognition and protection.
• It also emphasised the state’s obligation to provide “adequate recognition and protection of their relationship” (§ 65).
• Addressing arguments about traditional family values, the Court noted that “the recognition of same-sex couples does not in any way prevent different-sex couples from marrying” (§ 75).
• It further rejected the idea that protecting the traditional family could, on its own, justify withholding legal recognition from same-sex couples (§ 76).
• While the judgment does not require Ukraine to introduce same-sex marriage, it establishes an obligation to provide a legal framework for recognising and protecting same-sex relationships. The Court concluded that the absence of such recognition “amounts to discrimination against the applicants on the grounds of their sexual orientation” (§ 80).
• Its final finding was unequivocal: “There has therefore been a violation of Article 14 of the Convention taken in conjunction with Article 8” (§ 81).

The full judgment is available in English in the ECtHR’s HUDOC database.

By explicitly referring to this judgment, the EU has made its implementation part of the assessment of Ukraine’s progress towards membership.

According to Sheremet, in its judgment of 25 November 2025 in the case of Jakub Cupriak-Trojan and Mateusz Trojan v. the Voivode of Mazovia, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that same-sex EU citizens who married in one EU member state must be recognised as a family and enjoy the corresponding rights throughout the Union, including in countries that do not yet have domestic legislation providing for same-sex marriage or civil partnerships.

Why the EU Included the Court’s Ruling in Its Requirements

The European Court of Human Rights is not an EU institution. It operates under the Council of Europe, an international organisation whose human rights convention Ukraine ratified in 1997. Its judgments are therefore binding on Ukraine independently of the country’s EU membership ambitions.

Under Article 46 of the European Convention on Human Rights, “states must comply with final judgments in cases to which they are parties”. The implementation process is supervised by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. Ukrainian legislation also recognises the Court’s case law as a source of law under Article 17 of the Law on the Enforcement of Judgments and Application of the Case Law of the European Court of Human Rights.

The EU accession process adds another dimension to this existing obligation. By explicitly including the Maymulakhin and Markiv v. Ukraine judgment in its equality and non-discrimination benchmark, the EU has made its implementation a matter of accession monitoring as well.

As a result, Ukraine’s progress on this issue is now assessed through two separate mechanisms: the Council of Europe’s supervision of the ECtHR judgment and the EU’s evaluation of reforms under Chapter 23 of the accession negotiations.

Civil Code Reform Under Close Scrutiny by European Institutions

Ukraine’s proposed new Civil Code, draft law No. 15150, has brought the question of same-sex partnership recognition into the debate over the country’s broader legal reforms. The issue is not only what the new Code will regulate, but whether it will address the lack of legal protection identified by the European Court of Human Rights.

The European Parliament made this connection in its resolution on Ukraine of 8 July 2026.

In paragraph 66, it welcomed Ukraine’s efforts to modernise its civil legislation while stressing that such reforms must comply with EU standards on equality and non-discrimination, including the protection of LGBTIQ+ rights.

In the same paragraph, the European Parliament welcomed a recent ruling by Ukraine’s Supreme Court recognising a same-sex couple as being in a de facto marital relationship. While this represents an important development in judicial practice, recognition in an individual case does not establish a general legal mechanism through which other same-sex couples can protect their relationships.

The European Parliament’s resolution is not itself a binding accession benchmark. However, its reference to civil law reform makes clear that the protection of LGBTIQ+ rights is relevant to how European institutions assess Ukraine’s legislative changes.

The central question regarding draft law No. 15150, therefore, is whether the fundamental reform of Ukraine’s civil legislation will help the country fulfil its existing obligations under the ECtHR judgment, or whether it will preserve the legal gap that originally led to the case being brought before the Court, thereby perpetuating institutional inequality contrary to EU policy.

What Happens If Ukraine Fails to Meet This Requirement?

EU accession benchmarks are not simply recommendations. They are criteria used to determine whether a candidate country has made sufficient progress to move forward in negotiations.

Chapter 23, Judiciary and Fundamental Rights, belongs to Cluster 1, Fundamentals, which is opened first and closed last in the accession process. Progress in this cluster influences the overall pace of negotiations, making unresolved fundamental rights issues particularly significant.

For Ukraine, this means that failure to implement the judgment in Maymulakhin and Markiv v. Ukraine will prevent interim benchmark 23.14 from being considered fulfilled. Without sufficient progress in meeting each of the established benchmarks, Ukraine will be unable to advance to the subsequent stages of negotiations under Chapter 23 of the negotiating framework, which concerns human rights.

Failure to meet this requirement will effectively block Ukraine’s progress in EU accession negotiations, as Chapter 23 belongs to Cluster 1, Fundamentals, which plays a central role in determining the overall pace of negotiations.

He emphasises that the EU is not a civil society organisation whose persistent demands can simply be brushed aside. Ukraine is critically dependent on European assistance and must maintain its reputation as a reliable partner.