European Parliament lawmakers voted on Tuesday in favour of a consent-based definition of rape – known as "only yes means yes" – and urged the European Commission to propose legislation establishing EU-wide rules.
The EU adopted minimum standards to combat violence against women for the first time in 2024, but a proposed article to create a common definition of rape was dropped after opposition from several member states.
"Silence, lack of resistance, the absence of a 'no', previous consent, past sexual conduct, or any current or previous relationship must not be interpreted as consent," the Parliament said in a statement after the vote on the report.
The report also recognises two trauma responses, clarifying that neither can be interpreted as consent. It identifies the "freeze response", a reaction to fear or threat that can lead to temporary paralysis and a loss of the ability to speak, and the "fawn response", which is a survival strategy.
A spokesperson for the European Commission said it would support national reforms, map the bloc's legal system and work to "identify further EU action, including legislative, to ensure that sex without consent is defined as rape across the EU".
EU countries apply different legal definitions of rape, even among those that have ratified the Istanbul Convention, an international treaty designed to protect women that criminalises rape based on the absence of consent.
France updated its rape laws last year to include "freely given and informed" consent following the Gisele Pelicot mass rape trial. Previously, French criminal law did not include the concept of consent and defined rape as sexual acts using "violence, coercion, threat or surprise".
German law uses the absence of "no" while Austria relies on a force-based definition. Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, and Slovakia have not ratified the convention while in October, Latvia's parliament voted to withdraw from it.
"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," Swedish lawmaker Abir Al-Sahlani with the Renew group said in a statement.
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