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We attended the Cyprus EU Presidency high level conference of 7 May, “Inclusion of persons with disabilities: empowerment and support in a community for all”. This event explored supported decision-making as a fundamental mechanism for autonomy and self-determination; policy reforms and legislative developments; and support services.
The European Commission presented 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 8 May – attended by us. We published a press release with our assessment. In response to criticism for a lack of ambition on the part of disability organisations, the Commission argues that the midway Strategy update had to take into account the global changes after 2020 and focus more on the better implementation of existing actions, such as the EAA and the Disability card. On the positive side, there should be an increased interaction with civil society through an enhanced role of the Disability Platform.
About the next long-term EU budget, the good news is that the European Parliament voted general guidelines for its negotiating position with the Council, and it supports the following points on funding for disability rights: ESF+ to remain a standalone and separate programme with a dedicated financial envelope; cohesion policy to remain a distinct policy with a dedicated and robust ring-fenced budget; strengthened multilevel governance.
Noteworthy is that the CERV programme will be merged with Creative Europe, under “AgoraEU”, as one of 3 strands aimed at promoting fundamental rights and equality, preventing discrimination, enhancing democratic participation, and upholding the rule of law. AgoraEU will have a 3.5 billion budget for democracy and citizens' value. EDF considers this proposal theoretically quite strong and it is monitoring the developments of the negotiations with the Council and the Parliament. Key will be the dimension of the CERV envelope within AgoraEU. EDF is proposing amendments inter alia to mainstream accessibility in the audiovisual sector receiving EU funds, which aligns very well with our demands.
The bad news is that the Parliament’s draft report on the National and Regional Partnership Plans ignores many of the priorities expressed by disability organisations, namely: no mention of the CRPD in the horizontal principles; no earmarking of 25% for social inclusion; no removal of infrastructure projects from the 14% funding going towards social actions. The Commission argues that, although the current EU budget framework lacks explicit disability conditionalities, it will use guidance, human rights provisions, and monitoring mechanisms to promote independent living and prevent misuse of EU funds.
We attended a European Commission (DG JUST) meeting with CERV beneficiaries civil society organisations, where we were asked to indicate synergies between our action plans for next 3 years with the enhanced Disability Strategy. The aim of the meeting (to become yearly) was to build a sense of 'partnership' for the delivery of the strategy and to enhance liaison with our corresponding policy officer at DG JUST, Laura Rosillo. Evidently, the Commission is interested in evidence-gathering about the experience on the ground.
Francesca Sbianchi, chair of our Advocacy Committee, was elected to the Board of the European Disability Forum (EDF).
We continued to be busy with the process of recruitment of the new position of Advocacy Officer based in Brussels.
Employment
We attended the Disability Platform sub-group meeting on supported employment/transition of young persons with disabilities from education to employment.
The leader of Youth Forum participated in Youth Policy Dialogue with Commissioner Hadja Lahbib in Brussels (19–20 March), as part of the consultation on the EU Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities up to 2030. Contributions from the Youth Dialogue were evidently used in preparing the update of the Disability Strategy, namely on inclusive education (including the accessibility of learning materials and e-learning platforms), assistive technologies, and the potential of AI.
We circulated to our Training Working Group, for feedback, draft EU guidelines on supported employment prepared by the Association for Supported Employment Europe (ASEE) for the EU Disability Platform.
We used the Commission’s DG EMPL #EndPoverty communications campaign and presentation of their Anti-Poverty Package (including a first-ever Strategy by the same name) as an opportunity to put forward our disability benefits trap issue.
Inclusive design
We co-signed, along with EFHOH, EUD, and Inclusion Europe an EDF-lead joint letter to the Commission’s Executive Vice-President Virkkunen and the Equality Commissioner Lahbib urging for a revision of the article on accessibility in the Audiovisual Media Services Directive. Our Advocacy Committee was asked to support our communication about it, and also to widely circulate within their networks an audiovisual media services user experience survey.
News about upcoming Irish Presidency of the EU events: there will be a High Level Conference on Technologies and AI to be held in Dublin on 22-23 October, and a Conference on Universal Design to be held in Galway on 4-6 November.
We requested action from our Advocacy Committee and Braille Working Group, to promote a “Yes” vote with members of the national mirror committees to the European standardisation body CEN, for the adoption of the new European standard on tactile lettering in the built environment.
Jakob Rosin was approved by the Commission approved to be part of the European Accessibility Act Article 28 Expert Group as EBU representative. This group will gather representatives from the 27 EU countries, organisations of persons with disabilities and industry representatives to support the European Commission in the implementation of the EAA.
We further fine-tuned our draft issue brief on inaccessible household appliances based on comments from the Advocacy Committee. The likely next step is approval of the document by the EBU Board, but we want to remain flexible to align it as much as possible with the 4 awareness-raising videos in preparation.
In response to their call for feedback for the European Commission’s High Level Forum on Standardisation Recommendations for the 2027 work programme, in response to a solicitation for thematic suggestions from ANEC, we suggested household appliances. After exchanging with ANEC, it was agreed that, in the absence of legislation, we should aim narrow focus standard on the use of touchscreens in domestic appliances, and its impact on consumer safety.
Mobility
Observing that the European Guide Dog Federation were active with ANEC on the draft European standard on assistance dogs/creating and sustaining assistance dog teams, we asked them whether they needed EBU support in lobbying at national level for its adoption. Their answer was yes, and (on our request) they provided us with Advocacy arguments. This resulted in an action request to our Advocacy Committee.
Miscellaneous
We had a meeting with the project officer at the Council of Europe for the Sport For All project, a project co-funded with the European Union but implemented by the Council of Europe. The aim of the meeting was to explore synergies. Apparently we have a lot to learn from the output of the project, which ends this August with a conference in Strasbourg (France) on 23-24 June – for which we will receive an invitation. We welcome this contact as an opportunity to engage more with the Council of Europe, for a Europe-wide reach.
We circulated to our Youth Forum a Commission survey (public consultation) for the EU Youth Strategy post-2027, for feedback and possible EBU response.