Statutory cohabitation: Act of 23 November 1998: Gives limited rights to registered same-sex and opposite-sex couples.
Marriage open for same-sex couples (2003): Same rights and responsibilities as opposite-sex married partners. Now both partners need not be Belgian citizen. Exceptions: Belgian law does not provide for presumed paternity for the female spouse of a married woman who gives birth during their marriage; no provision for joint parental responsibility, nor for adoption by a same-sex partner or a same-sex couple. At the moment the Belgian parliament considers giving same-sex couples the right to adopt children.
Unions that are similar to or synonymous with civilunions include civil partnerships, registered partnerships, and domestic partnerships.
The controversial civilunions law enacted in Vermont in 2000 was passed as a response to the Vermont Supreme Court ruling in Baker v.
A Vermont civilunion is nearly identical to a legal marriage, as far as the rights and responsibilities for which state law, not federal law, is responsible are concerned.
Belgium hosts the headquarters of NATO and a major part of the European Union's institutions and administrations, including the European Commission, the Council of the European Union and the extraordinary and committee sessions of the European Parliament, as well as parts of its administration.
Belgium is one of the few countries that has compulsory voting, thus having one of the highest rates of voter turnout in the world.
Currently, the Belgium economy is heavily service-oriented and shows a dual nature with a dynamic Flemish part with Brussels as its main multilingual and multi-ethnic centre and a GNP/person which is one of the highest from the European union, and a Walloon economy that lags roughly one quarter behind (in GNP/person).
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