The European Parliament's Employment and Social Affairs Committee has adopted recommendations calling on the European Commission to propose a new directive on just transition in the workplace, with 42 votes in favour and 12 against. The proposed directive would establish mandatory worker consultation requirements, stronger protections against unfair dismissal, and individual rights to training during working hours to support workers through green and digital transitions. Parliament will vote on the legislative initiative in January 2025, after which the Commission has three months to respond with either proposed steps or reasons for refusal.

The European Parliament’s Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has adopted recommendations calling on the European Commission to propose legislation establishing minimum requirements to prevent and reduce work-related psychosocial risks, including stress, burnout, harassment and mental and physical disorders. The proposed legislation would impose binding duties on employers to assess psychosocial risks regularly, implement prevention and support measures, protect workers from violence and discrimination, ensure human oversight of workplace algorithms and support employees returning after related absences. It would also recognise psychosocial risks as a cause of occupational disease and presume that resulting harm is work-related unless the employer proves otherwise. The recommendations were adopted by 41 votes to 12, with 4 abstentions, and are expected to be considered by Parliament in October 2026.

The European Parliament’s Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO) has adopted a report calling for stronger EU measures to protect minors online. Approved by 32 votes to five, with nine abstentions, the report urges an EU-wide digital minimum age of 16 for access to social media, video-sharing platforms, and AI companions without parental consent, and a minimum age of 13 for general social media use. It supports the European Commission’s efforts to develop privacy-preserving age assurance systems but emphasises that platforms remain responsible for ensuring safety-by-design. The Committee calls on the Commission to fully enforce the EU Digital Services Act, including fines or bans for non-compliant platforms, and proposes introducing personal liability for senior management in repeated breaches, banning engagement-based recommender algorithms and addictive features for minors, and prohibiting gambling-like mechanisms and ‘kidfluencing.’It also seeks to regulate manipulative technologies such as targeted ads, influencer marketing, and dark patterns under the forthcoming Digital Fairness Act. The initiative follows Eurobarometer findings on young people’s increasing reliance on digital media, with the European Parliament due to vote on the recommendations at the 24–27 November 2025 plenary session.

The European Parliament’s Committees on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) and on International Trade (INTA) have jointly adopted draft legislation to ban imports of Russian natural gas, including pipeline and liquefied natural gas (LNG), from 1 January 2026, with limited exemptions for pre-existing contracts until mid-2026 and early 2027. The proposal also prohibits the storage of Russian-origin gas in EU facilities and extends the ban to Russian oil and petroleum products from the same date. It introduces stricter customs verification of production origin, mandatory authorisation and audits, and measures to prevent circumvention through re-labelling, transit via third countries, or shadow fleets. The Committees removed a clause allowing temporary suspension of the ban for energy security reasons and added penalties for breaches. The draft was approved by 83 votes to 9, with 1 abstention, and negotiations with the Danish Presidency of the Council were authorised. This initiative aims to protect the EU from the weaponisation of energy supplies by the Russian Federation, which intensified following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing manipulation of European gas markets.

The European Parliament's Internal Market and Consumer Protection and Civil Liberties committees have adopted amendments to the Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) by a vote of 101 to nine, with eight abstentions. These changes postpone compliance deadlines for high-risk AI systems. The amendments establish the following application dates: for high-risk systems, such as those involving biometrics and critical infrastructure, the deadline is now 2 December 2027; for systems covered by EU sectoral legislation, the deadline is set to 2 August 2028. Additionally, the proposals introduce a ban on AI 'nudifier' systems that create sexually explicit images without consent while extending the watermarking compliance deadline until 2 November 2026.

The Legal Affairs Committee has confirmed the provisional agreement reached with the Council of the EU on 30 November 2023 regarding EU protection against strategic lawsuits against public participation (anti-SLAPP). The new rules will ensure that journalists, activists or academics against cross-border cases of strategic lawsuits against public participation are protected from harrassment and intimidation, make information on support accessible and make sure that where national law does not allow claimants to cover these costs, they should be covered by EU governments. The exception to cross-border cases will include cases where claimant and defender are both domiciled in the same country as the court and the case is relevant only to one EU Member State.

The European Parliament has confirmed amendments to EU air passenger rights rules agreed with the Council of the EU in the Conciliation Committee under the third reading procedure. The revised rules maintain compensation for delays of more than three hours, late cancellations and denied boarding, with payments of €250, €400 or €600 depending on distance, while retaining the extraordinary circumstances defence. They also preserve passengers’ rights to reimbursement or re-routing after cancellations and require airlines to provide care during disruption. New provisions include automatic reimbursement for passengers who choose not to be re-routed, clearer compensation procedures, a nine-month claim period, a 30-day airline response deadline, free carriage of one personal item, greater fare transparency, fee-free child seating and stronger protections for passengers requiring assistance.

The European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs has endorsed a draft Parliament position to extend the EU e-Privacy rules until 3 May 2025, to allow for the detection of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) online. The extension will prevent a legal vacuum when the derogation expires in August 2024. This draft position will be announced at a plenary session of the Parliament in February 2024. Negotiations with the Council of the EU can begin once the position has been endorsed by the full house.

The European Parliament has endorsed the extension of a derogation from Directive 2002/58/EC (ePrivacy Directive) allowing the voluntary detection of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online until 3 August 2027. The vote passed with 458 in favour, 103 against and 63 abstentions, temporarily extending measures that were set to expire on 3 April 2026. Parliament specified that voluntary measures must be proportionate and targeted, should not apply to end-to-end encrypted communications and should not permit the scanning of traffic data alongside content data. It also stated that detection technology should only be used in relation to material already identified as CSAM or reported by users, trusted flaggers or organisations and should target users reasonably suspected of a connection to CSAM. The extension is intended to provide time to reach agreement on a long-term legal framework to prevent and combat child sexual abuse online. Parliament has indicated that it is ready to begin negotiations with the Council of the European Union on extending the derogation.

The European Parliament has endorsed a negotiation mandate with Member States to ensure fair trainee working conditions and prevent companies from disguising standard jobs as traineeships. The mandate, prepared by the Employment and Social Affairs Committee, proposes changes to EU rules on traineeships to curb abusive practices. It requires written traineeship agreements that clearly define pay, duration, tasks, learning objectives, and access to social protection such as health insurance. MEPs stress that traineeships should be limited in duration and involve entry-level work. The new rules would cover all types of traineeships, except mandatory educational traineeships for academic credit and apprenticeships. The mandate also calls for organisations to appoint a contact person for trainees to report suspected malpractice, and specifies that any traineeship lacking pay, training, mentorship, or evaluation should be considered abusive. Parliament’s position builds on its 2023 call for minimum quality standards and aligns with the European Commission’s draft directive. Interinstitutional negotiations with the Council will now begin.

The European Parliament has voted to postpone the application of the EU deforestation regulation by one year, responding to concerns from EU Member States, non-EU countries, traders, and operators about their ability to comply with the rules by the end of 2024. The new implementation dates are set for 30 December 2025 for large operators and traders, and 30 June 2026 for micro- and small enterprises. Additionally, the Parliament approved the creation of a new 'no risk' of deforestation category for countries with stable or increasing forest area development, which would face less stringent requirements. The amendments, including the postponement, were adopted with 371 votes in favour, 240 against, and 30 abstentions. The file has been referred back to Committee for Interinstitutional Negotiations, and the changes must be endorsed by both the Council of the EU and the Parliament before entering into force.

The European Parliament’s Employment and Social Affairs Committee has endorsed a provisional agreement with EU governments on updated rules for the coordination of social security systems, backing fairer and clearer rules on social benefits for EU mobile workers. The committee approved the deal by 47 votes in favour, three against and four abstentions. If formally adopted by Parliament and the Council of the EU, the updated rules aim to ensure access to social security for EU workers who live or work in another EU country, while distributing obligations fairly among member states and strengthening cooperation to share information and root out fraud, including abusive practices such as letterbox companies.