EU Commission Backs Conversion Therapy Ban — But Only as a Non-Binding Recommendation

The European Commission’s response to a 1.2-million-signature citizens’ initiative on conversion therapy landed on Tuesday, May 13, five days earlier than the May 18 deadline Brussels had set itself. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the practice “has no place in our Union” and called it “barbaric.” She asked every member state to outlaw it.

What she did not do is propose a binding EU-wide ban — and that is the story.

Advocates who have been pushing this issue for two years cautiously welcomed the language and then very quickly noted the gap between what the Commission said and what the Commission actually proposed. The European Parliament’s April 29 resolution, backed by 405 of 630 MEPs, had specifically asked the Commission to bring forward draft legislation. The Commission instead chose Option B: a formal “Recommendation” — a soft-law instrument that has the political weight of an EU institution but cannot compel any government to do anything.

What the Recommendation actually says

The Recommendation, adopted by the College of Commissioners on Tuesday, asks all 27 member states to do four things. First, prohibit conversion practices targeting sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and sex characteristics. Second, ensure those bans cover adults as well as minors. Third, fund prevention and survivor support. Fourth, report back to Brussels within 18 months on what they have done.

It is the first time an EU institution has formally taken a unified position that conversion practices should be banned bloc-wide. In that sense, it is not nothing. It commits the Commission to monitoring national progress, gives advocacy groups a citation to wave at hostile capitals, and sets up follow-up reporting that could, in theory, escalate to infringement action if a member state ignores it long enough.

It also lines up with the Commission’s 2026–2030 LGBTIQ+ Equality Strategy, which had flagged conversion practices as a priority but had been vague about what enforcement would look like. Tuesday’s Recommendation is the implementation step that strategy was missing.

Why advocates are still disappointed

The disappointment is about what the Recommendation is not. It is not legislation. It does not create new obligations under EU law. It cannot be enforced through infringement proceedings the way a directive could. And in member states where the political will is exactly the problem — Hungary, Italy, Bulgaria, the Slovak Republic — a non-binding recommendation is precisely the kind of instrument those governments are best at ignoring.

ACT (Against Conversion Therapy) LGBT, the organisation that organised the European Citizens’ Initiative behind this whole process, said in a statement Tuesday that the Recommendation was “a step, not the step.” The group’s coordinator told Euronews that the Commission had effectively told governments “what they already know” while declining to use the legal tools that would force them to act on it.

ILGA-Europe took a similar line. The umbrella group’s senior policy officer noted that the Commission’s own internal legal analysis had identified at least two viable legal bases under existing EU treaties — the Victims’ Rights Directive and the bloc’s general anti-discrimination competence — that could have supported a draft directive. The choice not to use those bases, advocates argue, was political, not legal.

What’s already on the books

A patchwork of national bans already exists. Eight EU member states currently prohibit conversion practices in some form: Belgium, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Malta, Portugal, and Spain. The German and Greek bans cover minors only or have informed-consent carve-outs for adults. The Belgian, French, Maltese, and Spanish bans are broader. Outside the EU, Iceland and Norway have full bans, and the UK is still — after seven years of promises — somewhere between Westminster committee rooms and never.

That leaves 19 EU member states with no national prohibition. Among them are some of the bloc’s largest populations: Italy, Poland, Romania, the Netherlands (which has a partial framework but no specific prohibition), Sweden, and the Czech Republic. The Commission’s Recommendation is aimed at exactly this group. Whether any of them will move in response is now the question.

The Hungary problem

The Commission’s choice of a Recommendation rather than a directive cannot be separated from the wider EU LGBTQ+ rights fight, and the elephant in that fight is Hungary. The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in April that Hungary’s 2021 Child Protection Law — the “anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda” law — violated EU fundamental values. That was the first time Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union had ever been used in a ruling. Budapest, now under a post-Orbán government led by Péter Magyar, has said it will repeal the law.

The Hungary ruling shows the Commission has real legal tools when it wants to use them. The choice not to use those tools on conversion practices — to issue a recommendation rather than propose a directive — is therefore not a question of capability. It is a question of priorities and political math, particularly the Commission’s reluctance to open another front with the EPP’s right wing during the early months of the new mandate.

What member states do next

The next 18 months are the part that matters. The Recommendation asks governments to outline national plans, designate responsible authorities, and report progress. Several governments — France, Spain, Belgium — already comply with the substantive ask and will simply formalise it. Others will quietly do nothing and bet that Brussels will not escalate. A few may go further than the Recommendation requires: Ireland’s coalition has signalled it will use this as a push to finally legislate, and Czech advocates are using Tuesday’s announcement to revive a bill that has been stuck in committee since 2024.

The real test comes in 2027, when the first national progress reports are due. If those reports show meaningful movement, the Commission’s bet — that political pressure plus a soft instrument can move 19 capitals further than a directive ever would have gotten through Council — will look smart. If they show that the same governments that have been stonewalling for years simply file paperwork and continue stonewalling, the Recommendation will be remembered as a missed opportunity.

For now, what advocates have is the EU’s first explicit, institutional statement that conversion practices are incompatible with the Union’s values. That is worth something. It is also, by design, less than what they were asking for.