Himani Jha | September 23, 2026

The Court of Justice of the European Union (“The Court”) pronounced a judgment in Jakub Cupriak-Trojan and Mateusz Trojan v. Wojewoda Mazowiecki (“Cupriak-Trojan”), which is a rare decision that is not only welcomed as a rights judgment but also as a structurally important decision for private international law as well. Cupriak-Trojan concerned two same-sex Polish nationals, one of whom was also of German nationality, who married in Berlin in 2018. As the couple wanted to live in Poland as a married couple, they asked that their German marriage certificate be transcribed into the Polish civil register. Polish authorities refused because Polish law does not permit same-sex marriage. In its November 25, 2025, judgment, the Court held that Articles 20 and 21 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (“TFEU”), when read with Articles 7 and 21 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, preclude a Member State from refusing recognition and transcription where that is the only available way to give effect to the marriage status that was lawfully acquired in another Member State. 

The recognition that a lawfully acquired family status cannot simply disappear across borders is the heart of the matter, and it deserves to be celebrated. The Court did not ask Poland, or any other Member State, to introduce same-sex marriage into its domestic family law. What it did is more subtle and, for private international law, more consequential: it refused to allow a lawfully acquired family status to become invisible at the border of the home Member State. 

Several early commentaries have begun unpacking the implications of the Court’s decision in Cupriak-Trojan, but tend to focus on a relatively narrow doctrinal question. For instance, discussion on the European Association of Private International Law blog largely centers on the distinction between recognition of marital status and recognition of its legal effects, asking whether Member States must treat a same-sex marriage concluded abroad as a marriage in their jurisdiction or whether recognizing certain consequences of that union would suffice. Emerging academic commentary follows a similar path, situating the judgment primarily within the trajectory opened by Coman and Others v. General Inspectorate for Immigration (“Coman”) and examining how the Court balances Member State autonomy in family law with the demands of EU free movement and non-discrimination.      

Building on emerging commentary, this article focuses on the broader private international law implications of the judgment and its interaction with the wider architecture of EU private international law. Rather than remaining within the status-versus-effects debate, it asks what happens once the Court’s logic of cross-border status continuity begins to interact with the broader architecture of EU private international law. If a marriage validly concluded in one Member State must follow a couple across the Union, the consequences inevitably extend beyond civil registration: questions about matrimonial property, succession, parental status, adoption, and other legal consequences of family life quickly follow. These questions, if left unaddressed, are likely to surface in future litigation across the Union.

Unlike Coman, which recognized same-sex spouses for residence rights under free movement, Cupriak-Trojan raises the broader issue of whether a marriage validly concluded in one Member State can be denied civil status in another. Courts and legislators sometimes say that they need not “recognize the marriage” so long as they recognize some of its consequences. Cupriak-Trojan makes that distinction harder to sustain in a union built on free movement, mutual trust, and fundamental rights. The Court’s reasoning, especially as summarized in the AG’s press release, points to concrete, everyday consequences: property, taxation, inheritance, and the capacity to continue family life without legal fragmentation. That is precisely the kind of “limping status,” where a marriage validly concluded in one jurisdiction is recognised as a marriage there but denied that status in another, leaving the same couple with different legal statuses across borders that private international law is supposed to prevent, not normalize.

This is also where the human-rights dimension becomes indispensable. Article 7 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights protects private and family life, while Article 21 of the Charter prohibits discrimination on grounds including sexual orientation. The Court’s approach sits comfortably within a line of Strasbourg authority that has steadily pushed states toward legal recognition and protection for same-sex couples. In Oliari and Others v. Italy, the European Court of Human Rights (“ECtHR”) held that the absence of a legal framework recognizing same-sex relationships violated Article 8. In Orlandi and Others v. Italy, the Court addressed the refusal to register foreign same-sex marriages. And in Fedotova and Others v. Russia, the Grand Chamber held that complete non-recognition of same-sex couples was incompatible with Article 8. The Advocate General (“AG”) in Cupriak-Trojan expressly drew on the Strasbourg trajectory, citing Przybyszewska and Others v. Poland, in which the ECtHR found Poland had failed to put in place a specific legal framework for same-sex unions. 

What makes the judgment especially interesting for private international law is not just what it resolves, but what it leaves open. Substantively, the Court has said that a marriage validly concluded in one Member State cannot simply be denied public existence in another if that denial blocks free movement and family life. But once that proposition is accepted, a series of follow-up questions becomes unavoidable. If the civil register must be opened to a foreign marriage, what other legal consequences dependent on marital status must follow? The AG explicitly recognized the need for procedures that prevent same-sex couples from falling into a legal vacuum on matters such as property, taxation, and inheritance. The Court’s judgment gives that logical judicial force; the next challenge for Member States and EU institutions is ensuring that such recognition functions coherently across different legal and administrative contexts.

That is why Cupriak-Trojan should be read as a private international law judgment with broad systemic consequences, not merely as a family-law or equality judgment. Mutual recognition has long been one of the Union’s most powerful legal techniques. However, mutual recognition usually operates through sector-specific instruments, such as the Brussels I Regulations for civil and commercial judgments, the Brussels IIb Regulation for Divorce and Parental Responsibility, and the EU Succession Regulations. Cupriak-Trojan shows what happens when the technique is applied to civil status itself. Once marital status travels across borders within the Union, however, questions arise about how that status is to be proven, registered, and relied upon in downstream disputes. The judgment therefore exposes a gap in the practical coordination of civil status across different areas of EU private international law.

The next challenge, therefore, is no longer recognition itself but managing its spillover effects within EU private international law. The judgment ensures that a marriage validly concluded in one Member State cannot simply disappear when the couple moves across the Union. Yet it leaves open how that recognition interacts with adjacent areas such as civil registration, matrimonial property, succession, and parental status, questions that are likely to generate increasing litigation if left unresolved. One sensible way forward would therefore be a dedicated EU civil-status recognition framework for marriages lawfully concluded in another Member State. Such an instrument would not require Member States to introduce same-sex marriage domestically, but could instead focus on ensuring that marital status validly created in one Member State remains legally meaningful across the Union. In practical terms, such a framework could establish a standardized and non-discriminatory procedure for recognition and transcription of foreign marriage certificates. 

Additionally, the framework could clarify the legal consequences of recognition across core private-law fields such as succession, matrimonial property, and family reunification. The framework could also include explicit safeguards for parental status and the best interests of the child, so that children are not exposed to fragmented recognition when their parents’ marital status crosses borders. At the same time, more immediate steps may also be possible. As the AG already observed, it is for the Member States to establish “appropriate procedures” to recognize such marriages conducted in another Member State. In that sense, Commission guidance or a Council-led political declaration could serve as an interim measure, helping national authorities coordinate administrative practice and reduce uncertainty while a more comprehensive legislative solution is developed. Far from constituting an overreach into national family law, such regional coordination would simply reflect the Union’s existing commitment to free movement, legal certainty, and the continuity of family life across borders.

Seen in this light, Cupriak-Trojan is a success story for both equality and legal coherence. It protects the dignity of same-sex couples who have already lawfully built a family life within the Union, and it pushes EU private international law toward a more honest account of civil status portability. The judgment’s real legacy will depend on whether the Union is willing to follow through: not by relitigating the right to recognition, but by building the procedural and substantive architecture that recognition now requires. 

Himani Jha is currently working as a Research Associate specializing in Public International Law and International Criminal Law at National Law University Delhi, India. She is a law graduate and holds an LLM in International and Comparative Law from the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, India.