MEPs call for an EU psychosocial risks law that would make telework changes trigger a risk assessment

The European Parliament’s Employment and Social Affairs Committee adopted a legislative-initiative report on 31 August 2026, by 41 votes to 12 with 4 abstentions, calling on the Commission to propose minimum EU requirements on work-related psychosocial risks. The report names teleworking arrangements, automated decision-making and automated monitoring systems as changes that should require a prior psychosocial risk assessment, carried out with workers’ representatives before the change is introduced. It also restates that workers have a right to disconnect, and that algorithmic management systems must retain human oversight.

Why this matters. If this became law, moving people on or off remote working would stop being purely a management decision. An employer changing telework arrangements would have to assess the mental-health impact first, in consultation with staff rather than announcing the outcome. That speaks directly to the pattern running through this year’s return-to-office disputes, where mandates have arrived as instructions with no assessment behind them. It would also put a legal floor under monitoring software, which currently sits in a grey area in most member states.

Nothing has changed yet. This is a legislative-initiative report, which is Parliament asking the Commission to act rather than legislation in itself. The full plenary vote is scheduled for the October I 2026 session, after which the Commission has three months to respond and must give reasons if it declines. Rapporteur Estelle Ceulemans (S&D, Belgium) led the report.

What to watch. The October plenary vote, then the Commission’s response before the end of January 2027. A refusal would be as informative as an acceptance — the right to disconnect has been through this cycle before without producing a directive.