MP Boris Milosevic (SDSS) on Friday proposed updating rules adopted in 2007 which impose a permanent ban on blood donation by men who have had sex with another man at least once in their life.

“I believe the permanent ban stigmatises entire groups, especially as in 2014 we adopted the Life Partnership Act,” the Serb minority MP said.

He stressed that he believed that measures of precaution should be in place and that he was not advocating abolishing the 2007 rules but that most EU countries had started lifting the permanent ban on blood donation, with Austria being the last one to have done so in 2022.

Most EU countries have introduced a rule on a temporary, 12-month ban from the last sexual contact, he said.

Realistically speaking, someone who has lived in a life partnership with a person of the same sex for a number of years certainly poses less risk than heterosexuals who change their partners occasionally, he added.

Milosevic noted that the ban was introduced when there were no reliable tests at the start of the HIV epidemic, but that very reliable tests have existed for some time, including in Croatia.