About half of all women in the European Union say they have been sexually harassed at least once since turning 15, according to the European Council. The EU has responded with a range of measures to better protect women and girls from sexual violence: it acceded to the Istanbul Convention on October 1, 2023; in 2024 the bloc adopted a directive criminalizing workplace sexual harassment, cyberstalking and the non-consensual distribution of intimate images; and its Gender Equality Strategy targets cyberviolence, deepfakes and other forms of digital abuse. European countries also fund prevention and victim-protection projects with hundreds of millions of euros annually.
Despite these steps, EU member states have long disagreed on a common criminal-law definition of rape. A cross-party initiative in the European Parliament pushed the European Commission to redefine rape legislation across the bloc so that all laws are based on consent. “The legislative initiative aims to create a uniform EU-wide regulation that ensures that in sexual relationships, only ‘yes’ truly means ‘yes’ and that all rape laws in the EU are based on the principle of consent,” said Swedish MEP Evin Incir, one of the initiative’s lead sponsors. Incir added that the decisive factor should be “the absence of consent” and not the requirement that victims must fight back or show injuries to prove they said “no.”
The Parliament-approved document also calls for alignment with international standards and stronger support for victims across member states, including access to justice, specialized services and healthcare. On April 28, 2026, the proposal was approved by a large majority in the European Parliament, with 447 votes in favor and 160 against.
Criminal-law approaches to rape across Europe vary and can be grouped into three broad models. In some countries an act is classified as rape only when physical force is used or threatened. Other states, including Germany, Austria and Poland, follow a “no means no” model: rape occurs when the act is carried out against the victim’s recognizable will, meaning an active refusal. The “only yes means yes” model defines any sexual activity without explicit, voluntary consent as rape. This consent-based model originated in Sweden and is now in force in several EU countries, including Belgium, Denmark, Croatia, Greece, Spain and the Netherlands; France adopted it in November 2025 after high-profile cases rekindled public debate. The Czech Republic and other countries are also discussing similar reforms.
Prosecution and conviction rates for rape remain very low across Europe. Many assaults are never reported, trials often hinge on conflicting testimony, and clear forensic evidence can be hard to obtain. Some estimates put the percentage of actual rapists who are convicted at only a low single-digit share. Sweden, which introduced the “only yes means yes” standard in 2018, has seen a significant rise in convictions. That rise is attributed in part to a companion provision criminalizing “grossly negligent rape,” which allows convictions when perpetrators failed to ensure their partner’s voluntary participation. Human-rights groups such as Amnesty International view the shift toward consent-based laws as an important step for legal standards and social change, even though proving rape in court remains difficult and conviction rates overall stay low.
An earlier push in 2024 to establish a Europe-wide consent standard failed, largely over questions of legal competence. Because criminal law is traditionally a core area of national sovereignty and rape is not explicitly listed in EU treaties as a cross-border criminal matter, some countries argued the EU lacked authority to set a uniform criminal definition. At that time France and Germany expressed concern the Commission could overstep and that any directive might be vulnerable to challenge at the European Court of Justice. Since then, positions have shifted: France changed its stance at the national level and Italy is working on comparable legislation. The 2026 parliamentary approval marks a renewed, cross-party effort to press for EU-wide adoption of consent-based rape definitions and improved victim support.