The European Parliament reflects a number of demands of the disability movement in its interim report on the next long-term EU budget approved on 28 April. The report outlines the general lines the Parliament will take when negotiating with other EU Institutions.
UN Convention as a guiding principle
Crucially, the report supports our call to reintroduce the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities into the list of ‘Horizontal Principles’ for the use of EU funds.
The Horizontal Principles are a list of rules Member States must follow in order to be able to use EU funds.
They will replace the ‘enabling conditions’ used in the current Budget. Nowadays, these ‘enabling conditions’ require EU Countries to follow the Convention when using EU funds. They also forbid the use of EU funds going towards institutions for persons with disabilities.
However, the proposal presented by the European Commission had not included compliance with the Convention as part of the Horizontal Principles.
Dedicated funding for social inclusion
The Parliament report also supports other priorities for the disability movement.
It criticises the Commission’s proposal for not including the European Social Fund Plus as an independent fund. This makes it less clear what kind of spending counts as social or not.
More actions are competing for the same amount of money, and actions promoting inclusion could miss out on much-needed funding if the Commission’s proposal remains unchanged.
The report also laments that there is no longer a strict rule on how much funding should go towards social inclusion. This is funding that supports marginalised groups in particular.
Currently, 25% of all social funding should be used to support social inclusion. It is an important source of funding for persons with disabilities.
The Commission’s proposal has removed this rule from the next EU budget.
A bigger budget
The European Parliament also calls for the entire EU budget to be bigger in order to have a greater impact on people’s lives.
What’s next?
This report presents the Parliament’s general position. Now the Parliament must also decide its position on each draft regulation that governs future funding programmes. They will have to vote on amendments for each individual regulation, which will take some time.