The European Parliament and the Council have reached an agreement on the Regulation on the protection of adults across borders, an important step forward for adults who need support in another EU country.
The agreed text reflects several long-standing demands from the disability movement, especially on supported decision-making, legal capacity, privacy and respect for a person’s will and preferences.
Why this matters
The regulation is meant to establish clear rules for how to best help adults who need support (for example, persons with intellectual disabilities, or persons with dementia or Alzheimer’s) when they face ‘cross-border situations’. These can be, for example, when they get medical care abroad, own property in another Member State, or move to another EU country. Therefore, this law is especially important for persons with disabilities and older adults.
The original proposal from the European Commission did not align with the obligations of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. For example, it only recognised substituted decision-making instead of focusing on support and autonomy of the adults, and did not refer to the rights in the UN Convention.
Negotiations
We advocated that any EU rules in this area must protect autonomy, legal capacity and choice, rather than reinforce substitute decision-making and segregation. This was a point that we made strongly to the Council and the Parliament when these Institutions were preparing their positions.
It was also the position of the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the .
Key improvements
We were ultimately successful in introducing several improvements that respond directly to our demands:
- Clearer references to measures that support an adult in exercising legal capacity and to powers of representation granted by the adult.
- A definition of “protection” that expressly includes supported decision-making, co-decision-making and representation, as well as a definition of “representative” that can cover a person appointed by a court, designated by the adult, or authorised by law.
- Grounds for refusing recognition where the adult was not given a genuine and effective opportunity to be heard.
- A European Certificate of Support and Representation, which can be requested by the person concerned or their support person/representative.
- An explicit reference to the CRPD in the article on relations with other instruments.
- Deletion of provisions on national registers, which is an important win for privacy and data protection.
These are among the points that we advocated for in our joint position with the European Network on Independent Living, Inclusion Europe, Mental Health Europe, the European Council of Autistic People, Validity Foundation and AGE Platform Europe.
Remaining issues
The agreement is, however, not fully in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, as it does not prohibit cross-border institutionalisation of persons with disabilities:
- The provision on placement in another Member State requires authorities to take account of the adult’s interests and, “to the extent possible, their will and preferences”.
- Substituted decision-making could still be recognised, at the discretion of Member States receiving the request.
Next steps
The agreement will still need formal approval before it becomes law. We continue to follow the final stages closely and to push for full implementation in a way that safeguards legal capacity, equality, independent living and privacy.
We expect the Regulation to be published in the Official Journal of the EU early 2027. After that, it will become immediately applicable in EU countries.
We will continue to advocate for changes to national laws to obtain support over substitution and representation.