Briefing on Surrogacy Prepared for the European Parliament

On 27 February 2025, the research services of the European Parliament published on line a briefing authored by David de Groot, entitled Surrogacy: The legal situation in the EU, setting out the legal situation in the EU regarding surrogacy.

The document provides a good, well-researched and easy-to-follow introduction to the topic. In 17 pages, it explains in some detail the approaches of the Member States having introduced laws for altruistic surrogacy (Ireland, Greece, Cyprus and Portugal; a similar move is under discussion in the Netherlands), and of those banning, either explicitly or implicitly, domestic agreements on surrogacy (Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania Malta, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden), or both domestic and cross-border arrangements to the purpose (Italy).

It also addresses the issue of recognition of parenthood involving surrogacy abroad, examining the case law of the ECHR and its Advisory Opinion of 10 April 2019, on the recognition in domestic law of a legal parent-child relationship between a child born through a gestational surrogacy arrangement abroad and the intended mother.

The final part of the document focuses on the EU action on the matter: the parenthood regulation proposal (NoA: negotiations ongoing, awaiting decision, and addressed by Justice and Home Affairs Council, of June 14, 2024, where exchange in particular dealt with cases of parenthood following surrogacy), and Directive 2024/1712, which identifies the exploitation of surrogacy explicitly as a form of human trafficking (although, if my understanding is correct, not punishable as an offence of trafficking in human beings except in case the surrogate mother is a child: see recital 6 and Article 1 amending Article 2, paragraphs 3 and 5 of Directive 2011/36, on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings and protecting its victims, and replacing Council Framework Decision 2002/629/JHA).

Reference is of course also made to the Hague Expert Group and the Working Group on surrogacy, with a link to the 2022 final report of the former (the said report, and more, can be found here).