France, Germany, Netherlands side with conservative EU countries in split over rape definition
Feminist NGOs have criticised France, Germany and the Netherlands for blocking the inclusion of consent-based definition of rape in the EU’s directive to combat violence against women as December’s negotiations on the law once again stalled.
To mark International Women’s Day on 8 March 2022, the European Commission proposed its directive to combat violence against women in Europe. The Commission’s proposed directive wants to better protect women from gender-based violence, aiming to ban forced marriages, female genital mutilation, sexist cyber-harassment and forced sterilisation.
The future law also seeks to establish a common definition of rape in Europe, which would make it a Eurocrime, to harmonise criminal penalties between the 27 member states and better protect victims.
While both the Parliament and the Commission supported a consent-based definition of rape, the Council’s mandate completely removed Article 5 which said that a non-consensual sex act is a criminal offence. Therefore now, nearly two years on, the directive is stuck in interinstitutional negotiations between the European Parliament, Council and Commission.
In leading the charge against a consent-based definition, France, Germany and the Netherlands are “playing into the hands of ultra-conservative states”, Camille Butin, advocacy officer at the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), told Euractiv.
