Our Board meeting took place on 7 November in Copenhagen, Denmark as a part of the High-Level Conference on Disability: Independent Living in Tomorrow’s Europe hosted by the Danish Presidency of the Council of the EU.
During the meeting, the Board:
- Were updated on our work regarding the proposed EU budget post-2027 and adopted the resolution ‘Ensuring the Multiannual Financial Framework 2028-2032 does not backtrack on the EU’s commitment to disability rights’
- Welcomed 4 new members: the Patchwork Association for Immigrant Families of Persons with Disabilities, the Youth With Disabilities Federation Sweden, PROSAZ z. ú., NGO Parostok.
Members participated on a peer exchange on the transposition of the EU Directive on combating violence against women:
- Pirkko Mahlamäki, chair of the EDF Women’s Committee introduced the Directive and stressed that national laws must fully include women and girls with disabilities. She highlighted the opportunity to address some gaps in the Directive, such as the criminalisation of forced sterilisation. She explained how organisations can use EDF guide to advocate for ambitious transposition.
- Foteini Zafeiropoulou, from the Greek National Disability Council highlighted three challenges: First, the lack of public consultation implement the Directive, with a short-lived public consultation launched over the Christmas period. Secondly, the proposed national law omitted half of the articles of the Directive. And, women with disabilities were not mentioned. The Greek disability council contacted the Ministry of Justice, but many aspects of the transposition are still unclear.
- Luisa Bosisio Fazzi, representing the Italian Disability Forum explained the collaboration between the disability movement and the feminist movement working together on the transposition of the Directive. She stressed the usefulness of the EDF guide to analyse the critical parts of the Directive, which is progressing slowly in Italy.
Some of our committees also met in the week preceding the Board:
- The Human Rights Committee met on the 21 October to talk about human rights issues in European countries, including budget cuts faced by persons with disabilities and their organisations. The Committee received an update on the upcoming EDF human rights report on passengers’ rights, and agreed to focus the 2026 report on CRPD independent monitoring mechanisms.
- The Social Policy Committee met on 24 October to agree on the advocacy approach to be taken to the social policy elements within the next EU budget. The Committee talked about how to make best use of the research done by the European Disability Expertise. They agreed on the need to have a clear EDF position on the negative impact of austerity on national social policies for persons with disabilities