"We have a consensus on this in the coalition," she told a LRT TV program.

The partnership law has already been drafted and is planned to be registered "in the coming weeks", according to the speaker, one of the initiators of the bill.

Cmilyte-Nielsen said it had taken time and effort to finalize the bill.

"Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people have been waiting for such a bill for decades now. So, it's natural that every effort has been taken to ensure that it is prepared properly," she said.

Other initiators of the legislative package legalizing partnerships not only between men and women, but also of same-sex couples are MPs Tomas Vytautas Raskevicius, Paule Kuzmickiene, Andrius Navickas, Ieva Pakarklyte and Eugenijus Gentvilas.

The Delfi online news site has reported that the bill would define a civil partnership as "the fact of cohabitation of two persons (partners), registered in accordance with the procedure established by legal acts, for the purpose of establishing and (or) developing, and protecting the relationship of the partners"

Among other things, partners would be able to formally register their partnership with the Civil Registry Office and would be permitted to adopt either of their surnames as their common surname or use a double surname.

All property acquired by either partner during the partnership would be considered community property and thus belong to both partners.

Ending a partnership would be easier than ending a civil marriage. Spouses must turn to court to get divorced even if they have no children. A registered partnership could be dissolved by a notary as long as there are no children involved.

Currently, Lithuanian laws do not recognize either opposite-sex or same-sex civil partnerships. Several previous attempts by liberal politicians to legislate civil partnerships fell through at an early stage of the parliamentary process.

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