Conversion therapy: Brussels passes the buck to member states
The EU stops short of banning LGBT+ conversion practices, citing legal limits. Brussels will issue a non-binding recommendation in 2027 — and little else.
At a Glance
On May 13, 2026, the European Commission announced it would not propose binding legislation banning LGBT+ conversion practices, citing insufficient legal competence.
In response to a citizens’ initiative that surpassed one million signatures, Brussels committed to publishing a non-binding recommendation in 2027 urging member states to legislate.
Only eight of the EU’s 27 member states currently enforce a national ban; 19 remain without explicit legal protection.
What Brussels announced — and what it didn’t do
On May 13, the European Commission — the EU’s executive arm, roughly comparable to a federal administration — delivered its official response to a European Citizens’ Initiative on conversion practices. Launched in January 2024 by the NGO ACT (Against Conversion Therapy), the initiative had crossed the threshold of one million signatures from at least seven member states, legally obliging the Commission to take an official position.
The response amounts to an institutional compromise: no binding directive. Instead, Brussels committed to presenting a non-binding recommendation in 2027, covering measures to raise public awareness, help victims pursue legal action, and strengthen medical and psychological support networks.
The obstacle invoked is legal. Article 19 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) requires unanimity among member states to legislate against discrimination based on sexual orientation. Hadja Lahbib, the EU’s Equality Commissioner, acknowledged openly that no such unanimity exists. Legal constraint and political constraint overlap here — and cannot easily be separated.
Conversion therapy bans across EU member states
Eight of the EU’s 27 member states have enacted national bans on conversion practices: Belgium, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Malta, Spain and Portugal. The laws on the books are not identical from one country to the next.
In the 19 remaining member states, these practices face no explicit legal prohibition — leaving individuals in a zone of significant legal vulnerability, with limited formal recourse. The practices in question are not trivial: they can take the form of intensive psychological conditioning, exorcism sessions or electroshock procedures, methods widely condemned by international health and human rights bodies.
Lahbib was unambiguous in her call to EU capitals: she urged every member state to ban conversion practices outright, while acknowledging that the primary responsibility lies with national governments. Critics of binding EU-level legislation have argued that an overly broad legal definition could risk capturing legitimate therapeutic exploration or pastoral counseling. That argument was not adopted by the Commission — though it was not formally rebutted either.
Analysis: when rhetoric substitutes for action
The May 13 sequence illustrates a recurring structural tension inside the European Union: the capacity to produce strong political messaging — Lahbib described conversion practices as “disguised violence, not care” [translated from French] — coupled with operational paralysis when the political conditions for enforcement are absent.
The Article 19 unanimity requirement is real. But it is not the only available pathway. Article 83(2) TFEU opens a route to harmonize national criminal laws where that is deemed essential to implementing an EU policy; Article 114, on the approximation of laws, offers another avenue. The European Parliament had identified both alternatives as early as 2022. That neither was pursued suggests something closer to a political calculation than an absolute legal impossibility — though that reading cannot be established with certainty from available sources.
For a North American reader, the structural parallel is useful: the EU operates here less like a federal system — where Washington can impose civil rights standards on states that resist — and more like an intergovernmental organization whose coercive capacity remains suspended on the consent of its members. On questions of minority rights, that ceiling is especially visible.
A non-binding recommendation does not create an obligation. It documents an intention.
What is quantifiable: the gap between the 19 member states without bans and the EU’s repeated commitments on fundamental rights is structural, not incidental. A non-binding recommendation addressed to governments that have not moved in several years of European debate does not mechanically alter that dynamic.
The bottom line
A non-binding recommendation in 2027, directed at 19 member states that have not legislated — not for lack of information, but for lack of political will. The question that remains: what happens if, by 2028, those 19 governments still haven’t moved? Does the EU have a follow-up mechanism — or will this recommendation join a long archive of Brussels documents that documented a problem without resolving it?
Sources: France 24 · Euronews · Politico Europe · European Parliament (europarl.europa.eu)