Opinion on the legal basis of the recommendations to the Commission on psychosocial risk, stress and mental health at work

23.7.2026

Ms Li Andersson

Chair

Committee on Employment and Social Affairs

BRUSSELS

Subject: Opinion on the legal basis of the recommendations to the Commission on psychosocial risk, stress and mental health at work(2026/2023(INL))

Dear Chair,

On 21 November 2025, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL) requested the authorisation to draw up, under Rule 47 of the Rules of procedure, a legislative own-initiative report pursuant to Article 225 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) on ‘Psychosocial risk, stress and mental health at work’ (the ‘INL proposal’). On 4 March 2026, the Conference of Presidents granted the authorisation to the EMPL committee.

By letter of 27 March 2026, the EMPL committee requested the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) to deliver an opinion, pursuant to Rule 47(3), on the appropriateness of the legal basis for the INL report, that is Article 153(2)(b), in conjunction with Article 153(1)(a) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).

The JURI committee considered the matter of the appropriateness of the legal basis proposed in the draft INL in question at its meeting on 15 July 2026.

I - Background

The request for authorisation of the INL was made pursuant to point VIII(3) of Annex VI to the Rules of Procedure, which confers on the EMPL committee the competence in the area of health and safety measures at the workplace.

The purpose of the INL proposal is to invite the Commission to put forward a legislative proposal on psychosocial risks and well-being at work aimed at the efficient prevention of psychosocial risks in the workplace, such as anxiety, depression, burnout and stress, including risks caused by structural problems such as work organisation (i.e. poor management, poor work design or not properly matching workers’ knowledge and abilities with the assigned tasks). The Parliament called on the Commission to present such a proposal during a plenary discussion in May 2025.

II - The relevant Treaty Articles

Title X of Part three TFEU, on Social policy, provides, inter alia (emphasis added):

Article 153

(ex Article 137 TEC)

1. With a view to achieving the objectives of Article 151, the Union shall support and complement the activities of the Member States in the following fields:(a) improvement in particular of the working environment to protect workers’ health and safety;

(a) improvement in particular of the working environment to protect workers' health and safety;

(b) working conditions;

(c) social security and social protection of workers;

(d) protection of workers where their employment contract is terminated;

(e) the information and consultation of workers;

(f) representation and collective defence of the interests of workers and employers, including co-determination, subject to paragraph 5;

(g) conditions of employment for third-country nationals legally residing in Union territory;

(h) the integration of persons excluded from the labour market, without prejudice to Article 166;

(i) equality between men and women with regard to labour market opportunities and treatment at work;

(j) the combating of social exclusion;

(k) the modernisation of social protection systems without prejudice to point (c).

2. To this end, the European Parliament and the Council:

(a) may adopt measures designed to encourage cooperation between Member States through initiatives aimed at improving knowledge, developing exchanges of information and best practices, promoting innovative approaches and evaluating experiences, excluding any harmonisation of the laws and regulations of the Member States;

(b) may adopt, in the fields referred to in paragraph 1(a) to (i), by means of directives, minimum requirements for gradual implementation, having regard to the conditions and technical rules obtaining in each of the Member States. Such directives shall avoid imposing administrative, financial and legal constraints in a way which would hold back the creation and development of small and medium-sized undertakings.

The European Parliament and the Council shall act in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure after consulting the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions.

In the fields referred to in paragraph 1(c), (d), (f) and (g), the Council shall act unanimously, in accordance with a special legislative procedure, after consulting the European Parliament and the said Committees.

The Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission, after consulting the European Parliament, may decide to render the ordinary legislative procedure applicable to paragraph 1(d), (f) and (g).

3. A Member State may entrust management and labour, at their joint request, with the implementation of directives adopted pursuant to paragraph 2, or, where appropriate, with the implementation of a Council decision adopted in accordance with Article 155.

In this case, it shall ensure that, no later than the date on which a directive or a decision must be transposed or implemented, management and labour have introduced the necessary measures by agreement, the Member State concerned being required to take any necessary measure enabling it at any time to be in a position to guarantee the results imposed by that directive or that decision.

4. The provisions adopted pursuant to this Article:

- shall not affect the right of Member States to define the fundamental principles of their social security systems and must not significantly affect the financial equilibrium thereof,

- shall not prevent any Member State from maintaining or introducing more stringent protective measures compatible with the Treaties.

5. The provisions of this Article shall not apply to pay, the right of association, the right to strike or the right to impose lock-outs.

III – CJEU case-law on the choice of legal basis

The Court of Justice has traditionally viewed the question of the appropriate legal basis as an issue of constitutional significance, guaranteeing compliance with the principle of conferred powers (Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union) and determining the nature and scope of the Union’s competence.

According to well-established case-law, the legal basis of a Union act does not depend on an institution's conviction as to the objective pursued but must be determined according to objective criteria amenable to judicial review, including in particular the aim and the content of the measure.

If examination of a measure reveals that it pursues a twofold purpose or that it has a twofold component and if one of those is identifiable as the main or predominant purpose or component, whereas the other is merely incidental, that measure must be based on a single legal basis, namely that required by the main or predominant purpose or component. Only exceptionally, if it is established that the act simultaneously pursues a number of objectives, inextricably linked, without one being secondary and indirect in relation to the other, may such an act be founded on the various corresponding legal bases. This would however only be possible if the procedures laid down for the respective legal bases are not incompatible with and do not undermine the right of the European Parliament.

IV – Aim and content of the INL

Following the last available version of the compromise amendments of 22 June 2026, the suggested legal bases of the legislative proposal called for by the EMPL committee, namely Article 153(2), point (b), and Article 153(1), point (a), are stated in the recitals of the draft resolution.

As regards the aim of the requested measure, initially the annex to the draft report stated in its Article 1 that ‘[t]his Directive lays down minimum requirements to prevent, eliminate or, where this is not possible, reduce work-related psychosocial risk”. The compromise amendments of 22 June 2026, in their first recommendation to the Commission, reiterate that “The aim of the proposal should be to lay down minimum requirements to prevent, eliminate or, where this is not possible, reduce work-related psychosocial risks and their potential outcomes […]”.

The second recommendation addresses the scope of application ratione personae of the requested measure, i.e. “workers, defined as any person employed by an employer, including trainees and apprentices, in all sectors of economic activity, both public and private”. The intended scope of application of the requested measure would therefore coincide with that inherent to Article 153 TFEU.

Recommendations 4, 5, and 6 detail the obligations to be imposed upon employers by the requested measure, namely a general prevention obligation, the obligation to regularly carry out a risk assessment and to adopt an action plan, and the obligation to carry out a risk assessment following a work reorganisation or the introduction of automated decision-making and automated monitoring systems.

The following recommendations, numbered 7 to 11, shift the focus to the rights that the requested measure should grant to workers. In particular, the seventh recommendation enshrines workers’ right to a psychologically safe work environment. The eighth and ninth recommendations focus on workers’ rights upon returning to work after a long-term absence or repeated absences caused by a health impairment linked to work-related psychosocial risk. The tenth recommendation enshrines workers’ right to report on psychosocial risk factors without suffering retaliations. The eleventh recommendation lays down a prohibition to require workers to engage in work-related communications or tasks outside their working hours (‘right to disconnect’).

Recommendations 12 and 13 tackle the angle of organizational measures geared towards the prevention of work-related psychosocial risk. In particular, they recommend that the requested measure include provisions concerning the appointment of protective and preventive services specific to psychosocial risk and the information, consultation and participation of workers in relation to risk assessment and risk management activities relating to psychosocial risk.

The subsequent set of recommendations, numbered 14 to 18, identifies several obligations that the contested measure should impose on Member States. These include supporting the work of labour inspectorates as regards work-related psychosocial risk; introducing a rebuttable legal presumption covering the causal link between facts and damage, where a worker establishes facts indicating exposure to psychosocial risk and a damage compatible with such exposure; developing education and training programmes on this topic; monitoring trends and collecting data relating to psychosocial risk, and providing for effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties applicable to infringements of the requested measure.

Recommendation 19 clarifies that the requested measure should be without prejudice to Member States’ prerogative to maintain or introduce rules that are more protective of workers’ health and safety. It appears therefore that the requested measure is to set out “minimum requirements”, in keeping with the provision of Article 153(2)(b).

Finally, recommendation 20 encourages the involvement of social partners in the implementation of the requested measure.

V – Analysis

According to the case law of the Court, the concepts of 'working environment', 'safety' and 'health', used in Article 153(1)(a), embrace all factors, physical or otherwise, capable of affecting the health and safety of workers in their working environment. Accordingly, the existing EU legislation based on that legal basis already applies to psychosocial risk, albeit without addressing it specifically.

It should be stressed that the rights and obligations laid down in Council Directive 89/391/EEC of 12 June 1989 on the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health of workers at work (the ‘OSH Framework Directive’) apply to all occupational risks, including psychosocial ones. Article 6, paragraph 2, point (g) of that Directive provides that the overall prevention policy developed by every employer should cover inter alia “social relationships”, thereby referencing the relevance of occupational psychosocial risk within the architecture of the OSH Framework Directive.

The main aim of the INL proposal, as stated in the first recommendation, clarifies that the measure the INL proposal requests should pursue the aim of improving the working environment, with a view to protect workers’ health and safety, in line with Article 153(1)(a) TFEU. The content of the proposal, especially of its core recommendations relating to the rights and obligations to be imposed on workers and employers respectively, is broadly consistent with this objective.

However, some aspects of the recommendations appear to occasionally stray away from a strict notion of occupational safety and health, including measures that could also be pertinent in other neighbouring policy areas, for which a specific legal basis exists, notably:

- the recommendation that the action plan include measures governing work-related psychosocial risks related to the processing of workers’ data for profiling or other purposes (recommendation 5, paragraph 4b, point (e)), which could also be considered an expression of the objective to protect individuals with regard to the processing of personal data, enshrined in Article 16 TFEU;

- the recommendation that Member States ensure the continuity of care and access to mental health support for workers exposed to psychosocial risks even after the termination of an employment relationship (recommendation 7, third paragraph), which, as it relates to social security of workers, could be framed within the legal basis of Article 153(1)(c).

Nonetheless, the relative weight of these aspects within the recommendations respectively concerned and within the overall architecture of the requested measure is not such as to revoke into question that the aim of the requested measure remains the improvement of the working environment with a view to protecting workers’ safety and health.

VI – Conclusion

At its meeting on 15 July 2026, the Committee on Legal Affairs accordingly concluded, by 22 votes in favour, none against and 3 abstentions, that the INL proposal pursues the objectives covered by the concepts of 'working environment', 'safety' and 'health', as referred to in Article 153(1)(a) TFEU and that, therefore, Article 153(2)(b), in conjunction with Article 153(1)(a) TFEU, seem to be the appropriate legal bases.

Yours sincerely,

Ilhan Kyuchyuk