The Council of the EU agreed its position (“General Approach”) on the European Disability Card and the European Parking Card during the Employment and Social Affairs Council meeting of the 27 November. This is an essential step to start negotiations on the final text, once the European Parliament also adopts its position.
The Council, led by the Spanish Presidency, has reached an unusually fast agreement. It took less than 3 months from the publication of the Commission proposal to the position of the Council. In many other cases, it takes years to get to this stage, with proposals sometimes getting “stuck” in Council indefinitely (such as the 2008 proposal for an “Equal Treatment Directive”). We congratulate the Spanish Presidency for achieving the General Approach so quickly and taking us one step closer to making the proposed European Disability Card and the European Parking Card a reality.
Ambition of the Commission’s proposal is reflected
However, speed is not a merit on its own. The Card must also be ambitious and help persons with disabilities travel freely. We are, therefore, happy that the Council maintained much of the original Commission proposal, keeping most of the relevant points intact. This includes, importantly, passenger transport services, which are of one of our priorities.
Other positive points include that:
- The text now clarifies that personal data will be safe and only authorised users can have access to the information in both Cards.
- A requirement was added for the European Commission to create an accessible website, available in all EU languages, with relevant information on the European Disability Card and the European Parking Card.
Several shortcomings identified
However, there are also shortcomings. EDF would like to highlight that 2 exemptions were added to the scope, which means that the European Disability Card will not provide equal recognition to services which fall under the following groups:
- remunerated or non-remunerated services that are provided for the long-term inclusion, habilitation or rehabilitation of persons with disabilities;
- special conditions or preferential treatment to access specific services provided to persons with disabilities upon the fulfilment of additional criteria, including the performance of a specific individual assessment or a specific decision on the entitlement to specific services based on a disability.
Any limitation to the scope is regrettable from the perspective of persons with disabilities, and seeing as though the exemptions are formulated quite vaguely it is unclear what type of services, and how many, exactly can be excluded in practice.
Other shortcomings include:
- The measures in case of non-compliance have been weakened: The reference to “effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties” was deleted and replaced by “appropriate measures”. The reference to ‘violations of the was replaced by “non-compliance with or breaches of the national provisions adopted pursuant to this Directive”, which is not as strong as the wording of the Commission proposal.
- The Council text leaves it up to the Member States to decide whether to charge a fee covering the relevant administrative costs when issuing the Card. EDF regrets that it is not explicitly mentioned that the Card should be free of charge for the user – however, this is only a Recital (Recital 25) and not mentioned in the main text of the Directive.
- Annex 1 was amended to explicitly mention the possibility of Member States to introduce on the back side of the card additional information related to the disability status or entitlement to specific services based on a disability of the card holder, including the type or classification of disability. EDF regrets that this information can be added because it creates privacy and discrimination concerns.
- A “short stay” has now been defined as a “short visit or stay of up to 3 months” referring to coherence with Directive 2004/38/EC (‘Citizenship Directive’). We regret that this limit has been included in the Directive, even though a clause which allows Member States to go beyond this definition of “short stay” has been added.
- Council added longer deadlines for the Member States to issue the Parking Card. They now need to be delivered within 90 daysinstead of 60 days foreseen in the proposal. The deadline to replace the existing European Parking Cards was also changed from 2 to 5 years from the entry into force of the Directive.
- The Parking Card will not need to be provided in digital format, this is up to the individual Member State to decide.
- The transposition deadlines, which clarify how long each country needs to make the text into a national law have been extended. The original 18 months is now 36 months in the Council’s position. The deadline for Member States to fully apply the Directive – that means start issuing the Card following transposition – was extended from 30 months to 48 months.
- According to the General Approach text, accessible information about the services provided will be obligatory for public authorities, but only “encouraged” for private companies. From the perspective of the users of the Card, information should always be provided in accessible formats, no matter who provides the services.
All in all, this is an acceptable text to start inter-institutional negotiations. In the meantime, we hope that the European Parliament will be equally disciplined to adopt their position on time for negotiations to conclude, and a final text adopted, before the European elections in June 2024.