European Parliament Backs EU-Wide Conversion Therapy Ban — 405 MEPs Push the Commission to Act

The European Parliament voted on April 29 to endorse an EU-wide ban on so-called conversion therapy, with 405 of 630 MEPs backing a citizen-led initiative that has spent two years collecting more than 1.2 million signatures across the bloc. The vote is not legally binding, but it is unusually direct: it asks the European Commission, the only institution that can propose binding EU legislation, to draft a law banning practices that aim to change or suppress a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity in all 27 member states.

The Commission is expected to respond on May 18, the day after IDAHOBIT.

What was voted on, exactly

The vote concerned a European Citizens’ Initiative submitted by ACT (Against Conversion Therapy) LGBT, registered under EU rules in 2024 and certified earlier this year after crossing the one-million-signature threshold required to compel a parliamentary debate. MEPs were not voting on a draft law. They were voting on a resolution that endorses the initiative and formally calls on the Commission to bring forward legislation.

The text describes conversion practices as “akin to hate crimes” and asks for three things: a prohibition on practices targeting sexual orientation or gender identity, prevention and enforcement measures, and support for survivors. It also asks the Commission to use existing EU competences — including the bloc’s 2026–2030 LGBTIQ+ Equality Strategy and the Victims’ Rights Directive — to act even where unanimity among member states cannot be reached.

The split, 405 in favor and a sizable minority opposed, tracks the political fault line that has defined EU LGBTQ+ debates for the last several years. Most of the Socialists & Democrats group, the Greens, Renew Europe, and parts of the European People’s Party voted in favor. The hard-right ECR and Patriots groups voted against, often citing subsidiarity — the principle that issues like family, education, and healthcare belong to member states.

What’s already on the books

A patchwork of national bans already exists across the EU. Belgium, Cyprus, France, Malta, Norway, Portugal, and Spain have banned conversion practices outright. Germany passed a 2020 law prohibiting the practice on minors and on adults who have not given informed consent. Greece, in 2022, banned the practice for minors. Iceland banned it in 2023. Outside the EU, the United Kingdom has been promising — and failing — to legislate a ban for nearly a decade.

The result is that whether you can be subjected to conversion practices in Europe depends heavily on which border you happen to live on. A trans teenager in Lisbon is fully protected. The same teenager in Bucharest, Sofia, or Budapest is not.

The proposed EU-level legislation would set a floor. Member states could go further, but they could not go below it.

Where this gets harder

Even if the Commission proposes a directive on May 18, the path is not simple. Three constraints will shape what comes next.

First, legal basis. The EU does not have an explicit competence to legislate on healthcare or family policy at the federal level. To act on conversion practices, the Commission will likely route the proposal through anti-discrimination law, victims’ rights, or consumer protection — each of which has different voting thresholds in the Council. Some routes require unanimity, which Hungary alone could block.

Second, definitions. National bans differ on what counts as conversion therapy: only formal medical practice, or also informal religious counseling and “talking” interventions; only practices targeting sexual orientation, or also gender identity; only practices on minors, or on all adults regardless of consent. The EU draft will have to land somewhere on each axis, and the activist coalition is pushing for the broadest possible definition.

Third, enforcement. A directive obliges member states to transpose it into national law within a deadline, typically two years. Compliance varies. Hungary has already been ordered to repeal its 2021 anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda law after the Court of Justice ruled it unlawful on April 21, and has so far refused. A conversion therapy directive would be enforceable through the same mechanisms — infringement proceedings, fines, and ultimately Article 7 — but those mechanisms are slow.

What it would mean for the candidate countries

The vote also indirectly raises the stakes for the EU candidate countries in the Western Balkans, which are negotiating accession against the bloc’s “fundamental rights” cluster. Albania has had a partial ban since 2020, when the country’s main psychologists’ association barred its members from offering the practice. Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Kosovo, and Montenegro have no national ban. If the EU adopts a binding directive, candidates will eventually need to align — meaning conversion therapy enters the long, technical list of acquis communautaire items that gets debated in Brussels and translated into Albanian, Serbian, and Macedonian draft laws.

For LGBTQ+ communities in those countries, who are watching the EU debate with a mixture of hope and exhaustion, the vote on April 29 is one more reason to ask why their governments aren’t moving on this independently.

What to watch

• May 18: The Commission’s formal response to the citizens’ initiative. The two questions are whether it will propose legislation, and on what legal basis.
• The summer: If a proposal lands, expect early Council reactions from Hungary, Slovakia, and Italy. Watch whether the Commission frames the directive as a healthcare measure (likely blocked) or a victims’ rights / anti-discrimination measure (more passable).
• Late 2026: Parliament’s first reading of any draft directive. By then, post-Orbán Hungary may be looking very different — Péter Magyar’s Tisza party is expected to take office in mid-May after the April 12 election — and the bloc-wide political math could shift.

The April 29 vote does not, by itself, change anything. It changes who has to answer the question next, and when.