Which EU countries currently lack explicit bans on bestiality and what legislative changes have occurred since 2015?

1. Current legal gaps across the EU: three states named

The immediate answer endorsed by the cited sources is that Hungary, Finland and Romania were identified in 2015 as the only EU countries lacking an explicit criminal ban on bestiality after Denmark passed a prohibition that year; that finding is stated in both a Wikipedia history summary and BBC reporting on the Danish law ^{[1] [2]}. These sources present the list as a contemporaneous inventory of legal differences inside the EU following Denmark’s reform.

2. The decisive legislative change in 2015

Denmark’s parliamentary vote to criminalize bestiality in 2015 is the focal legislative change documented in the reporting: the bill was introduced to ensure animals had explicit protection because existing offences were judged insufficient, and the BBC framed Denmark’s step as leaving only Hungary, Finland and Romania without explicit bans ^[2]. The Wikipedia history entry repeats the same sequence, citing Denmark’s 2015 law as the point at which the residual group of EU countries without express prohibitions narrowed to those three ^[1].

3. Important nuance — pornography bans versus criminal prohibitions

The sources also show nuance: some national laws ban bestiality in specific contexts (for example, prohibiting bestiality in pornography) even where an explicit, standalone criminal offence of “sexual acts with animals” may not be codified; the Wikipedia entry on pornography in Europe notes that Finland criminalizes bestial pornography alongside child pornography and violent pornography, which signals a partial prohibition in a particular legal domain rather than necessarily a comprehensive statutory ban on all acts ^[3]. That distinction matters for legal practice and for how activists and prosecutors interpret “gaps” in protection.

4. Conflicting framings, agendas and implicit assumptions in coverage

The two main source types here — a BBC news report and Wikipedia summaries — each carry frames that matter: the BBC presented Denmark’s law as closing an EU-wide loophole and identified the remaining countries by name ^[2], while Wikipedia aggregates historical and comparative claims ^[1] and links to visual legal maps ^[4]. Wikipedia’s synthesis can propagate a concise claim (three EU countries lacking bans) but depends on contributors’ interpretations of national statutes; the BBC’s agenda is to make the development newsworthy and digestible, which can encourage a simplified take on complex legal architectures ^{[2] [1]}.

5. What the cited reporting does not settle

The provided sources do not supply up‑to‑date, primary statutory language from Hungary, Finland or Romania, nor do they present subsequent reforms after 2015; therefore it cannot be asserted from these materials whether any of those three countries later enacted explicit bans or whether prosecutorial or animal‑welfare statutes have been interpreted to amount to equivalent prohibitions. The pornography reference for Finland shows a legal restriction in one domain ^[3], but the sources do not prove whether Finland, Hungary or Romania currently criminalize all bestial acts outside of pornographic media ^{[3] [1]}.

6. Conclusion and reporting implications

Based on the BBC and the cited Wikipedia summaries, the answer to which EU countries then lacked explicit bans is Hungary, Finland and Romania, and the major legislative change highlighted since 2015 is Denmark’s parliamentary ban that year; however, significant legal nuance and possible subsequent reforms are not covered by these sources and require direct examination of each country’s penal codes or later reporting to confirm the present-day situation ^{[2] [1] [3]}.