Source: BBC News, Bloomberg, Associated Press via Boston Globe
A gay man in Germany may be entitled to his dead partner's pension following a ruling by the highest court in the EU.

Tadao Maruko's partner died in 2005 but the pension fund refused him a widower's pension and the case was sent to the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

The court ruled that refusing a pension was direct discrimination if the partnership was comparable to marriage.

Maruko's lawyers predict the case will have repercussions in EU countries where same-sex partnerships are legal.

"I'm happy. It's a very important step," lawyer Helmut Graupner told the BBC News website.

"This will help all those countries which have registered partnerships. It's the first time the ECJ has ruled in favor of same-sex couples."

Maruko, a 65-year-old German who has waged a three- year fight for his partner's life savings, argued he was discriminated against by a pension fund that refused to recognize the couple's partnership on par with marriage.

"The refusal to grant the survivor's pension to life partners constitutes direct discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation if surviving spouses and surviving life partners are in a comparable situation as regards that pension," ruled the Luxembourg-based EU court. The ruling means national courts in Europe must check whether the conditions identified by the court have been met.

Same-sex couples can't be denied the right to their dead partner's pension on the grounds that they aren't a married couple in those countries that offer life or civil partnership for gay couples and similar rights to spouses for a survivor's benefits, the EU court ruled.

The ruling may help align some of the different approaches to civil partnerships and marriages in the EU, but court stopped short of setting a precedent for same-sex couples across the 27-nation EU, leaving the final say in each case to national courts.

Nonetheless, Graupner said the decision will affect the rights of same-sex couples in most EU countries. The present system is a "mosaic" of laws, he said at a hearing last year.

Today, 10 EU nations do not recognize same-sex partnerships at all: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Ireland, according to the European branch of the International Lesbian and Gay Association. France and Italy grant them very limited rights, the group said.

But elsewhere in the EU -- notably in the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden -- life partnerships have acquired considerable social rights in the last 20 years.

The ruling will affect mainly those EU nations that treat the civil unions of gay couples similarly to marriages, such as in the U.K.

Graupner said today that it won't have the same effect in France or Luxembourg where gay unions aren't seen as being equal to marriage, or in Austria, where only marriage between a man and a woman is legally recognized.

"After this decision Mr. Maruko will for sure get the pension," said Graupner today in a telephone interview with Bloomberg. "There's no other way."

Lawyers for the German pension fund didn't agree with Graupner's view that the decision was clear-cut. The EU court wouldn't have left it up to the national courts to decide if it had wanted to change the present system, Andreas Bartosch, a lawyer at Haver & Mailaender, said in an interview at the court today.

"It leaves the door open for national pension funds to continue making their own decisions" on a case by case basis, said Bartosch.

Full article: BBC NEWS | Europe | EU backs gay man's pension rights
Gay Man Should Get Partner's Pension, EU Court Says | Bloomberg
Court rules on gay marriage rights | Boston Globe (AP)