MEPs Back Binding Mental Health Rules as Sick Days Pile Up Across Europe

European lawmakers have voted to push Brussels toward legislation on psychosocial risks at work, opening a new front in the debate over how far employers must go to protect employees' mental wellbeing. The European Parliament approved an own-initiative report by 413 votes to 210, with 29 abstentions, calling for binding EU rules covering stress, psychosocial hazards and mental health on the job. The European Commission now has three months to respond.

The text that survived the parliamentary process is softer than earlier drafts. It asks for an impact assessment before any concrete legislative proposal and drops a previously discussed legal presumption that health damage was work-related.

What the Parliament Wants

At the heart of the demands are explicit risk assessments covering workload, working hours, autonomy and clarity of roles. MEPs also want company-level action plans, recognition of psychosocial risks as an occupational disease, and simplified tools for small and medium-sized enterprises rather than blanket exemptions.

Pressure has been building for some time. Two peer reviews carried out by the Commission in 2019 and 2024 found, according to feedback from some member states, that the general obligations of the European framework directive 89/391/EEC — which requires employers to assess all workplace risks, psychosocial factors included — are not enough in practice. The Commission intends to present its Quality Jobs Act by the end of 2026.

If the push for explicit risk assessments sounds familiar, it's because documenting workplace hazards properly is the foundation of any safety regime — and gaps are where employers get caught out. A free toolkit gives you 41 ready-to-use templates and checklists, covering everything from manual handling to lone working, so your risk management stands up to scrutiny. Download the free Risk Assessment Toolkit

The Numbers Behind the Push

Survey work by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) underpins the case for tougher measures. According to the agency, 45 percent of employees in the European Union report risks to their mental wellbeing at work, while 29 percent describe work-related stress, anxiety or depression.

Its OSH Pulse 2025 survey found that 44 percent of EU workers suffer from severe time pressure or overload, 37 percent complain of general exhaustion, and 29 percent are affected by work-related or aggravated stress, depression or anxiety.

An earlier exercise, ESENER-3 in 2019, covered more than 45,000 establishments in 33 European countries. It showed that dealing with difficult customers, patients or pupils remains a key risk factor, even though more businesses than before now have structured procedures against bullying and harassment and action plans against stress.

On 13 October 2026, EU-OSHA launched its "Healthy Workplaces" campaign for 2026–2028, focused on mental strain. The European Week for Safety and Health at Work followed from 19 to 24 October 2026 under the campaign title "Together for Mental Health Work". As part of that week, a webinar from Finland on Nordic approaches was held on 20 October 2026. The agency offers companies practical instruments including the OiRA online risk assessment tool for SMEs, the OSHwiki portal, toolkits with short films and a Good Practice Award.

Member States Move at Different Speeds

National responses vary. On 20 October 2026, Austria's BMASGPK and the Professional Association of Austrian Psychologists (BÖP) launched the campaign "Gemeinsam für psychische Gesundheit bei der Arbeit" (Together for Mental Health at Work) for 2026–2028. The BÖP criticises what it sees as insufficient implementation of workplace health promotion and of the assessment of psychological strain. It wants work and organisational psychology anchored in the psychology law and established as a third pillar of the Employee Protection Act (ASchG).

In Luxembourg, the Inspection du travail et des mines (ITM) serves as the national EU-OSHA contact point. The authority stresses that preventing psychosocial risks works through dialogue, listening and early recognition of risky situations, and argues that mental health must be understood as a shared responsibility of employers and employees.

German Data Sharpens the Case

Germany's National Prevention Conference (NPK) recorded 147.3 million days of sickness absence for 2024, along with a 42 percent share of all reduced-earnings pensions attributable to mental health problems. In a position paper, the conference — backed by the GKV-Spitzenverband, DGUV, SVLFG, DRV Bund and PKV-Verband under DGUV chairmanship in 2026 — calls for stronger political engagement.

Among its proposals: raising the annual tax-free allowance of 600 euros per employee for workplace health promotion measures, simpler digital risk assessments for SMEs, more targeted training for managers and closer links with company integration management (BEM).

Regional data suggest implementation on the ground often falls short. Under the GDA programme on mental strain, Thuringia's occupational safety authorities found that 17 percent of inspected companies did not include psychological factors in their risk assessments at all, and only 37 percent assessed them adequately.

Thuringia also logged 7,288 workplace accidents in 2025, an increase of 8.2 percent on 6,738 the previous year, plus 28 serious accidents and three fatalities. By 14 October 2026, 5,588 accidents had been recorded there, including 38 serious and four fatal ones. On occupational diseases, the state saw 2,044 suspected cases and 613 recognitions in 2025.

The Cost of Doing Nothing

Health insurer reports underline the stakes. AOK's 2026 sickness absence report found that psychologically related lost time rose by nearly 42 percent over a ten-year comparison, with the average case lasting 28.5 days in 2025 — the highest figure ever recorded per individual case.

The BKK health report showed that in 2024 employees with a mental illness were unfit for work for an average of 38 days, compared with five days for an infection.

The scale is global. The World Health Organization puts the worldwide loss from depression and anxiety at 12 billion working days a year, causing productivity costs of around one trillion US dollars annually. In Brazil, the INSS reported around 472,300 benefits paid for mental disorders in 2024 — a 68 percent increase on the previous year and the highest level in at least a decade.

What Works in Practice

Some employers are already adapting. The city of Düsseldorf introduced, for its roughly 13,000 employees, an initial consultation with psychotherapists within one to two weeks, with up to seven follow-up sessions and around 300 mental health first aiders.

The St. Anna senior centre in Alsdorf, with around 160 staff, switched its shift model from eleven consecutive working days with three days off to ten working days with four days off, while extending the working day from seven to eight hours.

As the regulatory pressure grows, employers are being asked to show their safety documentation is complete — not just for physical hazards, but across the board. A free Health & Safety Toolkit delivers ready-to-use risk assessments and checklists covering the key UK regulations, so you can close compliance gaps before an inspection finds them. Get the free Health & Safety Toolkit

Occupational physicians also stress the need for reliable interfaces with specialist practices and rehabilitation facilities, and for equal access to the electronic patient record, where professional associations currently see only limited access rights.