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The European Commission will present its Communication "Enhancing the Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities up to 2030" at the EU Disability Platform plenary meeting in Cyprus on 6 May. We will be assessing it against our position paper of January.
The EBU Secretariat was busy with the process of recruitment of the new position of Advocacy Officer based in Brussels.
We continued to promote the candidacy of Francesca Sbianchi, chair of our Advocacy Committee, to the Board of the European Disability Forum (EDF), the elections to which will take place at their General Assembly in Cyprus in early May.
Employment
We continued to pursue replies from our 4 member organisations whose countries appear in our note for the European Semester as having the most problematic legislation in respect of compatibility of disability benefits with employment. Our Greek member eventually gave us their approval to proceed with lobbying, subject to modifying the note to reflect a recent change in Greek law. We are still waiting for a response from Bulgaria, Luxembourg, and Portugal.
We offered to the Commission’s DG EMPL Social Policies Unit to present the EBU note in the Strategic Dialogue meeting on their future communication around affordability and fighting poverty. Without success, the Commission wanting the discussion to focus on communication activities, not substantial analysis.
The EU Disability Platform Employment subgroup meeting in May will prepare future Commission guidance on the transition of young persons with disabilities from education to employment – an element of the Disability Employment Package. Anja Ursic (Slovenia), member of the EBU Board and member of the Training Working Group, will represent us on that occasion.
Inclusive design
We participated, along with other European disability organisations, in an EDF-led joint survey on the audiovisual media services user experience, ahead of the revision of the EU AVMSD Directive at the end of the year. We forwarded to EDF the feedback received from our membership. Disappointingly, we learned that the Commission does not intend to propose a revision of Article 7 (Accessibility) of the Directive. A joint letter to Vice-President Virkkunen and Commissioner Lahbib is being prepared.
The EBU draft issue brief on inaccessible household appliances was revised based on the comments and input from the Accessibility and Digitalisation Working Groups, and then sent to the Advocacy Committee for approval by 10 May. Four videos are being prepared that will illustrate the problem. The issue brief and the videos will link to one another and form an awareness-raising package.
Mobility
We liaised with EDF about their response to the Commission’s public consultation on their draft delegated act setting out the digital features for the physical versions of the European Disability Card and European Parking Card for persons with disabilities, to prevent fraud and ensure security and interoperability. Jakob Rosin (Estonia), EBU Board member and leader of the Accessibility Working Group, played a major role in forming the EDF position within their ICT Experts group. Eventually, in the consultation, we expressed full support for the EDF response.
Miscellaneous
The Commission announced its Communication on the European Sport Model for the last quarter 2026. Of 153 responses to the prior call for evidence, EBU's response in 2025 was only one from a disability organisation.
We are assessing whether to participate in the Commission’s DG EAC public consultation for the EU Youth Strategy post-2027.
On April 17th, our Executive Director, Lars Bosselmann, took part in a debate entitled: “Are European Elections truly inclusive, and what are the areas to improve?” This event marked the conclusion of an Erasmus + project run by young democracy activists from Luxemburg and Latvia, and it examined specifically the inclusion of blind and partially sighted citizens in electoral processes across Europe. It was an excellent opportunity for EBU to highlight its long-standing advocacy work for the reform of the electoral code at the EU level, and the need to keep pushing for progress ahead of the 2029 elections to the European Parliament. In addition, we were able to share practical examples on how elections can be made accessible and inclusive, based on our project work in that field.