Stress, psychosocial risks and mental health at work: a call for European legislation

MEPs in Strasbourg voted on the report by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL) entitled ‘Psychosocial risks, stress and mental health at work’ (A10-0225/2026). This is not a law, but a legislative initiative. Through it, Parliament calls on the European Commission to submit a proposal for legislation, and attaches an annex to the resolution setting out detailed recommendations on what the legislation should look like.

The resolution as a whole was adopted by 413 votes in favour and 210 against, with 29 MEPs abstaining. It was supported by all four groups of the pro-European majority. The S&D (123 in favour, none against) and the Greens/EFA (49 in favour, none against) voted unanimously, whilst the EPP (130 in favour, 38 against) and Renew (55 in favour, 17 against) voted by a majority. The Left (42 votes) also voted in favour. The ECR, PfE and ESN voted unanimously against, with none of their MEPs voting in favour: ECR 57 against and 19 abstentions, PfE 66 against and 6 abstentions, ESN 24 against.

The rapporteur was Estelle Ceulemans (S&D). The shadow rapporteurs were Eleonora Meleti for the EPP, Irena Joveva for Renew and Maria Ohisalo for the Greens/EFA. Neither the EPP, Renew nor the Greens/EFA issued any statement on this report that we were able to locate; their position is therefore reflected in how they voted. For the S&D, we have a statement from the rapporteur. However, this statement was made following the vote in the EMPL Committee on 2 September 2026 (41 in favour, 12 against, 4 abstentions), not in relation to the plenary vote. Ceulemans (S&D) stated in her group’s press release at the time: “Far-right groups, which oppose any progress in tackling psychosocial risks, and the European employers’ lobby BusinessEurope, which called for the text to be rejected outright, did not get what they wanted.” (our translation). In the headline of the same press release, the S&D links work-related stress to 840,000 deaths per year worldwide. We have not verified this figure ourselves.

However, the resolution did not pass without amendments. The annex containing the recommendations was voted on in sections, and on four of them the EPP joined the ECR, PfE and ESN in opposing the S&D, Greens/EFA and Renew. All four sections were removed from the text thanks to the votes of the ECR, PfE and ESN; without them, they would have remained. The second introductory section of the annex was rejected by 251 to 375, and the second part of recommendation 1 by 254 to 378. In both cases, the EPP was almost entirely against (2 in favour and 161 against, and 3 in favour and 161 against respectively). The S&D and Greens/EFA voted unanimously in favour, whilst Renew was divided (41 to 28 and 40 to 30 respectively). The first two parts of Recommendation 16 ended in the same way (279 to 326 and 276 to 362), with the S&D, Renew and Greens/EFA voting in favour. In the first of these, the majority of PfE MEPs abstained (41), yet the result was decided by the votes against from the ECR, PfE and ESN.

However, the EPP did not win every separate vote. Recommendation 11 was adopted by 340 to 223, even though the majority of the EPP were against it (26 in favour, 137 against). The S&D, Renew and Greens/EFA voted in favour, as did part of the PfE from the far right (25 in favour, 12 against). The third part of Recommendation 16 was adopted by a vote of 298 to 226, against the EPP. Conversely, all seven amendments supported by the ECR, PfE and ESN were rejected by all four groups of the pro-European majority, including the EPP.

We are not yet able to say exactly what the omitted sections of the annex contained. We have not been able to find their wording or the text of the amendments in the available sources, and the verbatim record of the debate has not yet been published. We have also been unable to locate the Parliament’s press release on the plenary vote.