EU Parliament Backs Proxy Voting for Pregnant MEPs

The European Parliament has voted overwhelmingly to let members delegate their vote while pregnant and after giving birth, ending a rule that forced MEPs to choose between a seat in the hemicycle and their newborn. The change passed 578 votes to 25, with four abstentions, on Thursday 12 November.

Under the new statute, an MEP may hand their vote to one colleague for three months before and six months after childbirth. The arrangement applies to plenary sessions only, and both the absent member and the colleague voting on their behalf are named in the minutes — a transparency safeguard written into the rule. Parliament president Roberta Metsola launched the initiative in 2025, and Thursday's vote is the body's first formal step toward changing its own electoral act.

578 votes, and a fix that took years

The margin was about as close to unanimous as the chamber gets. Sigrid Friis, a Renew Europe MEP from Denmark, told EUobserver that the change was well overdue. Friis worked up until her due date, which prompted comments about whether the parliament needed a midwife on standby.

“No member should lose her right to vote because of becoming a mother.”

That was Metsola, in a statement back in April, setting out the principle behind the reform. The mechanics are deliberately narrow: proxy voting covers the plenary, where the chamber's binding votes happen, and stops short of committee work or trilogue negotiations, where much of the legislation is actually drafted.

“I voted for hours with our baby in the plenary”

Maria Ohisalo, a Finnish Green MEP, told EUobserver she was really happy about the reform. Her own experience explains why: her infant was not eligible for childcare during the first Strasbourg plenary after she gave birth, so she voted for hours with the baby in the chamber.

Another MEP, who asked not to be named, recalled colleagues' annoyance at repeated breaks during trilogue negotiations while she was with her newborn. Those informal penalties — the raised eyebrows, the missed amendment, the vote lost while a member was in a maternity ward — are exactly what the statute change is meant to address.

Not law yet

The vote changes Parliament's own rules but not the electoral act itself, which is why the process does not end here. The reform still needs an opinion from the European Commission and a green light from the Council, where member states are represented, before a final vote in the parliament. Only then does proxy voting become available to members in practice.

• Three months of proxy voting before the expected due date.
• Six months after childbirth, covering the first plenary sessions of a member's leave.
• Plenary sessions only — committees and trilogues are excluded.
• Both MEPs named in the minutes, so every delegated vote is traceable.

What happens next

The Commission's opinion and the Council's position are the two remaining hurdles, and neither has a fixed date attached. Once both are in place, Parliament holds a final vote to confirm the change, after which the new rules apply from the following plenary session. Member states that wanted a narrower scope — limiting proxy voting to the weeks immediately around birth — will get another chance to argue their case in Council.

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Sources: EUobserver, “‘Very overdue’ – MEPs welcome proxy voting for pregnant members and new mothers”, 13 November 2026; The Brussels Times, “EU Parliament backs proxy voting for MEPs on parental leave”, 12 November 2026.