The European Parliament adopted this own-initiative resolution on the recruitment of children by organised crime on 18 June 2026. The final text carried on a broad coalition anchored by EPP, S&D, Renew, Greens/EFA and The Left, with ECR, ESN and most of PfE voting against or abstaining on the contested provisions. The resolution carries no direct legal force but represents Parliament's formal political position and is intended to press the Commission and Member States to act. The central debate ran through paragraph 14: whether recruited children should be treated primarily as victims, or whether serious offences should be carved out of that framework. The mainstream — EPP, S&D, Renew, Greens/EFA and The Left — wrote a victim-centred approach into the text, retaining the principle that children drawn into crime through coercion and group dynamics are to be treated as victims under international norms. Am 6, which would have reframed paragraph 14 to reject exclusive victimhood and to prohibit impunity for a list of grave offences, was rejected by 379 votes to 181 . ECR and PfE backed Am 6; the mainstream voted it down. Where opinion divided within the mainstream was on degree. Am 1 — adding a new paragraph 14a requiring that individual circumstances, offence seriousness and risk to public safety all be weighed — passed by 372 votes to 139 , with EPP, Renew and ECR in favour and S&D largely against. The EPP thus backed both the victim-centred core text and the balancing paragraph 14a, occupying the centre ground between a pure victim-protection approach and the harder line sought by ECR and PfE. Amendments 7, 8 and 9, which would have added cross-border compensation enforcement, extended liability, or narrowed paragraph 19 to focus on repatriation of migrant minors, were all rejected, leaving the broader protective framework intact.
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