New law allows same-sex couples to have social benefits

Penalties harsher for discrimination against minorities

According to provisions included in the new omnibus bill, same sex partnerships will be equivalent to religious marriage. The new bill, which was submitted to Greek parliament, also has clauses that foresee harsh penal and economic penalties for offenders who discriminate against people on the basis of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, affiliations, health, age or disability. Newspaper Ethnos reports that the government is attempting to effectively uproot arbitrary and unlawful actions perpetrated by members of law enforcement agencies in an effort to limit phenomena of brutality or torture, thus avoiding paying huge fines imposed on Greece by Human Rights convictions. According to the new provision on same sex partnerships, homosexual couples will have the exactly the same rights as heterosexual couples before the law in the workplace and matters of inheritance economic disputes. This means that gay couples will be eligible for social and family benefits, which were previously reserved for heterosexual couples.