Finally, the directive on violence against women, which was to allow a convergence of sanctions across the Old Continent, will not contain a European definition of rape. During a final meeting devoted to the subject, Tuesday February 6, the European Parliament and the Twenty-Seven should validate this decision and adopt the rest of the text, which wants to prohibit forced marriages, female genital mutilation, sexual harassment or even forced sterilization.
In its initial project, presented on March 8, 2022, the Commission proposed, in Article 5, that a “crime of rape” either “characterized” since the victim has not “not consented to the sexual act”. The European Parliament, which supported this approach, “preferred to adopt a half-law to act as quickly as possible for women victims of other violence”comments MEP (Centrists) Nathalie Colin-Oesterlé.
The member states did not want this provision. At least, there were not enough of them to defend it for it to obtain the required qualified majority. During the last meeting devoted to the subject, on December 13, 2023, ten of them, first and foremost France, Germany and the Netherlands, but also Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, had expressed their opposition. The thirteen governments which were in an opposite position, including Madrid, Rome, Athens and Brussels, had given up on asserting their point of view.
Criticisms within the hemicycle
Paris refused to legislate on a community definition of rape to the extent that this issue falls within the sole competence of the States. A few months before the European elections, scheduled for June 6 to 9, and while the National Rally, like other nationalist parties in the four corners of the Old Continent, is prospering on the back of a Europe which would deprive States of their sovereignty, the Elysée judged the timing to be poorly chosen.
From a legal point of view, “Article 5 was unlikely to pass the test of the Court of Justice of the EU”, adds a European diplomat. For countries which, like Belgium, have put consent at the heart of their rape legislation, this did not represent a risk. For others, on the other hand – including France, where rape is constituted when an act of penetration sexual activity was committed under threat, coercion, surprise or violence – a subsequent invalidation of Article 5 by the judges of Luxembourg would not have been without consequences.
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