Published on 11/09/2026 – 14:46 GMT+2
The Dutch and Spanish governments are advocating for an EU-wide minimum age requirement for social media, a restriction that could potentially expand to encompass other online services. This push comes as the European Commission prepares to unveil its own proposal in the coming week.
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According to a non-paper circulated on Friday, the two nations argued that the ban should be uniformly harmonized and enforced across Europe, extending its scope to video games, AI chatbots, and other risky digital services.
The restriction of minors’ access to social media has emerged as a fiercely debated topic across the EU and globally. Countries including France, Greece, Austria, Denmark, Spain, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands are currently considering or advancing national legislation to address the issue.
Under pressure to prevent a fragmented landscape of national approaches, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced in May that an EU-wide proposal was forthcoming, now anticipated during her State of the Union address next week.
Prior to the announcement, the Dutch and Spanish governments circulated a document aimed at shaping the upcoming proposal, emphasizing that “the introduction of a minimum age for social media is a measure that must necessarily be added to existing and upcoming legal frameworks.”
The two countries contend that the measure must be proportionate and respect fundamental rights, including freedom of expression, information, and data protection, and must be supported by a comprehensive impact assessment.
In August, the French Constitutional Council struck down a national law that banned social media access for individuals under 15, ruling that the measure was overly broad and insufficiently proportionate due to its infringement on constitutional rights.
The Dutch-Spanish paper advocates for a risk-based approach to tackling addictive algorithms and harmful design across all digital services, rather than focusing solely on social media, thereby extending its scope to video games and AI companions.
“There should be a possibility for online providers to obtain an exemption from the age requirement if they can demonstrate that their service is sufficiently safe,” the paper reads.
For the two countries, harmonized, EU-level enforcement is essential, as national fragmentation would undermine the measure’s effectiveness. They cite the Digital Services Act—which already empowers the Commission to regulate online services such as Google, Instagram, and TikTok—as the model to replicate.
The paper also argues that the upcoming proposal should avoid relying on parental consent as a mitigating measure, as it would be difficult to implement and would introduce additional privacy risks.
For the ban to function effectively in practice, an age verification app is essential. Spain and the Netherlands want the upcoming legislative proposal to be built upon the EU’s age verification framework, with the app’s function strictly limited to confirming a person’s age, thereby minimizing privacy impacts.