European Parliament Calls for EU-Wide Definition of Rape Based on the Absence of Consent
On 30 April 2026, the European Parliament voted in favour of a non-legislative report calling on the European Commission to bring forward proposals for an EU-wide criminal-law definition of rape based on the absence of freely given, informed and revocable consent. The vote ends — at parliamentary level — a long campaign by victim-support organisations and equality groups, and reopens a difficult question for the EU’s legislative architecture: where, exactly, the Union has competence to act on serious sexual violence.
What the report asks
The report’s central recommendation is that the legal threshold for rape across the EU should turn on the presence or absence of consent, not on whether the perpetrator used or threatened force or whether the victim was incapacitated. This ‘yes-means-yes’ standard is already enshrined in the criminal codes of around half of EU member states, including Spain, Sweden, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Croatia, Slovenia and Malta. Several others — including France — operate force-based definitions that critics argue place undue evidential burdens on victims.
The legal-base question
The principal obstacle is not political but legal. The EU has explicit competence to adopt minimum criminal-law rules on a defined list of cross-border crimes set out in Article 83(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union — terrorism, trafficking in human beings, sexual exploitation of women and children, illicit drug trafficking, and so on. Whether ‘rape’ as a free-standing offence falls within that list has been contested by member states for years, with some governments — notably France — arguing that domestic rape lies outside the EU’s competence.
The 2024 Directive on combating violence against women included most of the elements campaigners wanted but, in the face of opposition from a small group of governments, ultimately omitted a binding consent-based definition of rape. The April 2026 report is, in part, an attempt to reopen that debate now that political conditions have shifted.
What changes immediately
Nothing — yet. The report is non-legislative and does not bind the Commission. But it places a clear marker for the next legislative cycle and is likely to feed directly into the Commission’s review of the 2024 Directive, scheduled for 2027. In parallel, the report calls on member states still operating force-based definitions to re-examine their criminal codes voluntarily and to align with international standards, including the Istanbul Convention.
The wider picture
The vote forms part of a broader package of MEP initiatives on women’s rights and gender-based violence, alongside resolutions on cyberbullying and on the proxy voting rights of MEPs during pregnancy and after giving birth. Together, they signal a deliberate effort by the Parliament to assert legislative leadership in an area where Council unanimity has often proved elusive.
