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Western Europe
Dutch municipality pays for expert opinion gender change
Inhabitants of the Dutch municipality of Utrecht can get a free expert opinion that is required if they want to change their legal gender. The municipality will pay for it. Mayor Sharon Dijkstra announced this last Thursday. That is reported by the Dutch news websites Nu.nl and RTV Utrecht. Anyone…
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Western Europe
More marriages in Holland; fewer registered partnerships
The number of marriages in The Netherlands has increased in 2022. In the same period, the number of registered partnerships decreased. That reports the Reformatorisch Dagblad based on new statistics. Many of the marriages might have been postponed from the Covid years 2020 and 2021, but still the number in…
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Central Europe
German Interior Minister wants to limit refugee intake
As the influx of refugees continues to increase, municipalities are reaching the limit of capability in receiving them. Time to take action, Brandenburg's Minister of Interior Affairs, Michael Stübgen (CDU), argues right before the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “Our recording system is at the limit”, Stübgen…
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Northern Europe
Church of Sweden: In the future, all priests will marry gay couples
After Sweden Democratic politicians spoke up for the freedom of priests who refuse to marry gay couples, now the bishops of the Church of Sweden say that they disagree. “In the future, the Church of Sweden should only have priests who marry same-sex couples”. Last Thursday week, Sweden Democratic politicians…
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Eastern Europe
Thousands of Eastern-European Jews move to Israel
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine started, thousands of Jews have left Ukraine, Russia and Belarus and gone to Israel. Statistics from the Knesset, the Israeli government show that since February 24 last year, in total 41,813 people have left Russia, 13,490 left Ukraine and 1,990 immigrated from Belarus to…
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Central Europe
Acquittal German pastor Latzel must be reviewed, says Court
The legal battle around Bremen pastor Olaf Latzel will continue. Even though Latzel was acquitted by the District Court last year, the verdict must be reviewed, the Higher Regional Court ruled on Thursday. His lawyer is surprised. With this new ruling, the Higher Regional Court follows the public prosecutor who…
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Southern Europe
Croatian opposition tries to force Constitutional right to abortion through
The Croatian opposition insist that the right to abortion must be included in the Constitution. If the government blocks that, the opposition will not support the proposed Constitutional changes. The ruling parties want to change the Constitution so that it is harder to reverse decisions that are adopted by the…
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Northern Europe
Oslo presents options to introduce third gender
The Norwegian Minister for Culture and Equality has presented five ways a third gender could be realised. A law firm has collected the possibilities after the parliament rejected an earlier proposal in January. Last year, the law firm Lund & Co was tasked with the investigation that fell under the…
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Eastern Europe
Ukrainian churches call for round-the-clock prayer on Feb 24th
The Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organisations calls Christians in Ukraine to fast and pray on Thursday , the day Russia invaded the country a year ago. Coming February 24, a new military operation and massive missile attack is to be expected, the Council writes in a statement that…
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Western Europe
Dutch doctors worry palliative sedation becomes the norm at the end of life
More and more people pass away while sleeping deeply. Dutch doctors worry that palliative sedation will become a new norm in end-of-life care. “It seems that dying in your sleep becomes the new normal”, hospice medic Maarten Scholten wrote last year in the magazine Medisch Contact (Medical Contact). He argued…
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