This paper discusses the non-inclusion in the EU’s Gender Violence Directive of May 2024 of a provision on mandatory EU-wide criminalisation of rape of women, though proposed by the European Commission in its 2022 draft. The provision went significantly further than the Council of Europe’s 2011 Istanbul Convention, by bringing much-needed clarity on consent (by unambiguously requiring it to be affirmative) as well as on factors precluding freely given consent. The scope limitation to women was in line with the EU’s criminalisation competence for so-called Euro-crimes, featuring ‘sexual exploitation of women and children’. While the European Parliament had supported the provision and even proposed to mirror it for sexual assault, the Council of the EU has opposed it, for two reasons. The first erroneously held that ‘sexual exploitation of women and children’ was not a self-standing Euro-crime and that the label ‘sexual exploitation’ could not be stretched to rape, being a form of gender violence. The second objection was valid: a gender-specific criminalisation of rape of women only was (and is) in violation of EU law, which prohibits discrimination based on sex and (gender) inequality. While this formally explains the EU’s failure in criminalising rape (and sexual assault) featuring a gender-specific and affirmative sexual consent requirement, the Council’s rejection may have been prompted also by gendered conceptions about sexuality and sexual interactions in certain Member States. The paper offers a clear way forward, ie to extend the Euro-crimes list with sexual offences against persons of whichever gender (female, male, trans).