Home

nEUfam is a 60h course in European Union Family Law held at NOVA School of Law, Lisbon. The course addresses the issue of the pressure that changing family structures and family norms can exert on the future of the European project and whether the EU is equipped to respond to these changes. With evolving family and fertility patterns, the increasing incidence of families that do not align with the traditional model of family, and “culture wars” around family-related matters erupting across Europe, especially in illiberal contexts, the course supplies essential insights to rethink EU legal frameworks in ways that account for these shifts. It especially seeks to understand whether the EU can play a role when it comes to promoting the rights of non-traditional families, and the extent to which this requires amendments to the current legal framework and architecture of the Union. It furthermore assesses the threats to European integration posed by illiberal rules and parties by analyzing their instrumental use of traditional family norms to weaken the EU.

For the development of the project, which will last 18 months (1 September 2022 to 29 February 2024), the legal and institutional anti-discrimination frameworks in different countries (Germany, Sweden, Greece and Norway) will be analysed, with a particularly detailed analysis of the Norwegian experience, through a partnership with Egalia. The focus of this project will be on discrimination based on sex, racial/ethnic origin, sexual orientation and gender identity and disability, also considering the specific socio-economic consequences of each type of discrimination.