Two German states, Hamburg and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, are jointly pressing the Bundesrat, Germany’s legislative body that represents the sixteen states, to call on the federal government to introduce legislation establishing a consent-based standard for sexual offense law — commonly referred to as the “only yes means yes” model. The two states have submitted a resolution asking that the government draft such a bill promptly in the interest of more effective victim protection. The Bundesrat is scheduled to take up the matter on July 10th, 2026.
The initiative targets what its backers describe as a persistent gap in German law. Since 2016, Germany has operated under a “no means no” standard, under which a sexual act can generally be prosecuted if it is carried out against another person’s recognizable will. That reform, enacted through the 50th law amending the German Criminal Code, was widely hailed at the time as a milestone, since it shifted the legal focus away from proof of force, threats, or exploitation of a defenseless situation, and toward the victim’s expressed opposition.
But Hamburg and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern argue the current standard still leaves victims unprotected in cases where they are unable to visibly or audibly signal their refusal. Criminological research, the states note, shows that people in assault situations often cannot actively resist or object, instead entering a state of incapacity driven by fear or acute psychological distress. In practice, this means that non-consensual acts frequently never reach prosecution, or cannot be sufficiently proven in court, because the law still effectively requires some outward sign of rejection from the victim.
Hamburg’s Senator for Justice, Anna Gallina, framed the 2016 reform as an important step that nonetheless falls short of what is needed today: “The ‘no means no’ model was, at the time, a truly major step forward,” she said. “But we can only strengthen sexual self-determination effectively and in a way that matches reality with the ‘only yes means yes’ rule. Germany is lagging behind here; several European countries already have ‘only yes means yes’ in place. We know that there is currently a clear protection gap.”
“Many victims react to acute threat situations with a neurobiological freeze response, unable to speak or to physically defend themselves”, Gallina stated. “That’s why we, too, must make consent the standard. What must be decisive is whether the sexual act was consensual — not whether the victim sufficiently expressed their opposing will.” Gallina added that a comparable motion narrowly failed to win a majority at the most recent Conference of Justice Ministers, but said the issue had since gained political momentum: “Many people in Germany also expect us to move toward ‘only yes means yes.'”
The Justice Minister of Mecklenburg-Hither Pomerania, Jacqueline Bernhardt, struck a similarly direct tone, rejecting the notion that an absence of resistance amounts to agreement. “Silence is not a yes. Freezing is not a yes. Uncertainty is not a yes,” she said. “There are misunderstandings that we need to name clearly. Consent must be voluntary, unambiguous, and revocable. It must not be inferred from silence, fear, pressure, freezing, or mere passivity.” Bernhardt argued that the burden should not fall on victims to justify their own inaction during an assault.
If adopted, the resolution would not itself change the law; it would direct the federal government to examine and ultimately draft legislation moving Germany toward the kind of affirmative-consent framework already adopted in a number of other European countries.
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