EU experts deliver social media age-limit report as France, Spain push ahead with national bans

The European Commission receives a long-awaited expert report this morning that could shape whether and how the 27 member states impose a minimum age for social media. The document arrives at a moment when the bloc is torn between national bans already in motion and Brussels' insistence on a single, enforceable digital rulebook.

The report and its mandate

Experts will hand their recommendations to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at 10:00 in Brussels. The panel, convened in March, was tasked with answering two questions: is a statutory minimum age for social networks necessary in the EU, and if so, how should the Commission design it. Over four months the authors consulted scientists, lawyers and interest groups from multiple disciplines. Von der Leyen has previously accused large online platforms of deliberately making children dependent on their products for profit, and she has pointed to Australia – where a ban for under-16s has been in force since December 2024 – as a possible model.

A fractured landscape of national bans

Several EU governments are not waiting for Brussels. France will prohibit social media use for under-15s from 1 September 2026. President Emmanuel Macron defended the measure with sharp rhetoric.

The intelligence of our children and young people is not for sale, and their emotions must not be manipulated by American platforms or Chinese algorithms.

Spain has tabled a bill setting the bar at 16, though exceptions are possible if a platform can prove its design poses no risk to minors. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez described the social media landscape as a kind of Wild West.

These platforms offer a refuge for criminal activity, pornography and violence, especially to the harm of our children. We must bring order to the system.

Greece, Denmark and Austria are moving along similar tracks. Yet other member states remain unconvinced, and the Commission has already intervened: just last week it objected to the French plan on the grounds that it clashes with EU digital rules and must be amended.

Brussels pushes back against fragmentation

The fundamental tension is one of legal competence. National governments can in principle set an age below which social media is off-limits, and then expect parents to enforce it. But politicians in many capitals want the platforms themselves – TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram – to act as gatekeepers. Imposing age-verification obligations on those companies, however, is a power only the EU Commission can exercise under the bloc's digital laws. National rules that overlap with EU legislation are vulnerable to being struck down, as the French case shows. Brussels is keen to avoid a patchwork of 27 different systems, and hopes the expert recommendations will point toward an EU-wide solution.

Germany's alternative: graduated safety modes

Germany's family minister Karin Prien is promoting a different model: graduated safety modes for adolescents up to age 18, coordinated at European level, rather than a blunt age cut-off. She plans to discuss the approach with her counterparts and the Commission. "I have the impression that in all European countries there is a firm will to arrive at stricter, more effective rules here," the CDU politician said, according to tagesschau.de. Her proposal is likely to sit better with Brussels than the rigid bans being legislated elsewhere.

What comes next

The report is advisory; the final decision on whether to follow its recommendations rests with von der Leyen and the Commission. A legislative proposal from Brussels is expected by autumn at the latest. With France's ban about to take effect and several other national laws in the pipeline, the next few months will determine whether the EU can channel the member states' energy into a single, coherent regime – or whether the bloc's digital rulebook splinters before a common standard ever takes hold.