The European Parliament has adopted a landmark report calling on the European Commission to bring forward dedicated legislation establishing an EU-wide consent-based definition of rape. The vote marks a decisive step forward, following the setback in 2024 when a consent-based definition was dropped from the EU’s broader directive on violence against women after several member states argued the EU lacked the legal competence to legislate on rape. For the first time at EU level, it recognises the “freeze response”, an involuntary reaction to fear that can lead to temporary paralysis, alongside the “fawn response”, a survival strategy where victims appease their attacker to avoid escalation, establishing that neither constitutes consent.
It also makes clear that consent can be withdrawn at any moment during a sexual act. The report calls for 24-hour crisis centres across the EU, accessible without a formal report, and for extended statutes of limitations for rape offences, recognising that trauma often delays reporting. Renew Europe strongly welcomes the inclusion of a definition of rape culture as a structural problem rather than individual misconduct, and mandatory training for law enforcement, prosecutors and judges.
MEP Anna-Maja Henriksson (Svenska folkpartiet i Finland/Finland) Renew Europe shadow rapporteur for the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee, said: “The strength of any legal framework lies in its consistent application. In the area of sexual violence, that consistency has too often been lacking, with the burden in practice falling on victims rather than on establishing whether consent was freely given. This has to stop. It is time to strengthen the protection of victims and survivors and change how sexual offenses are viewed across the entire Union.
The vote marks an extremely important step forward. This is about ensuring that the law protects victims effectively and delivers justice in practice. Sex without consent is rape.” MEP Abir Al-Sahlani (Centerpartiet/Sweden) Renew Europe Coordinator and shadow rapporteur for the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality said: “Today, the European Parliament named what courts have refused to see for decades. Most rapes are committed by someone the victim knows, at home, without physical violence, and most victims are paralysed by fear rather than fight back. For years the law has been built around the wrong picture of rape entirely. This report also names rape culture for what it is, not a collection of bad individuals but a system of attitudes and norms that normalises sexual violence and protects perpetrators. Changing the law is how you start dismantling that system, and this vote is the first step.”
