Outcomes of our board meeting - 5 July



Outcomes of our board meeting - 5 July

The Board meeting of the European Disability Forum took place on the 5 July 2021. Below, you can find the main outcomes of this meeting. The EDF board:

  1. Reviewed the highlights of the first 6 months. These include, but are not limited to:
  1. Endorsed our current advocacy activities. This includes:
    • The review of the EU by the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
    • Our opposition to the Draft Additional Protocol to the Oviedo Convention.
    • The European Disability Rights Strategy.
    • The EU budget, especially the COVID-19 recovery and resilience funds
    • Tackling violence against women with disabilities and advocating on the directive on pay transparency.
    • Campaign on the minimum wage Directive.
    • EDF ongoing work on digitalisation regulations concerning digital services, digital markets and Artificial Intelligence.
  2. Approved our 4-year work plan which includes 4 main priorities: influencing the EU; bridge-building actions between EU level and national actors; awareness-raising and dissemination; network organisation and management.
  3. Discussed and decided on EDF’s engagement with the Conference on the Future of Europe, and plans key actions to ensure persons with disabilities are part of shaping the Future of Europe. This includes the participation of our President on the Conference’s plenary, the organisation of disability-related events in the Conference, and support to EDF members on engaging with the conference. We will also raise the issue of the accessibility of the online platform. We will also continue our participation in the Convention of civil society organisations, a parallel Convention organised by Civil Society Europe that will input into the Conference. We also participate in the 25 Percent project, a project led by the European Youth Forum that aims to gather ideas from young people.
  4. Discussed the EU Disability Card and explained our core demands for it. They include a legally binding Card that ensures mutual recognition of disability status and that covers, at a minimum culture, leisure, sport, tourism and transport. We will discuss it further in an event on the 16th of September .
  5. Discussed our campaign for the 25th anniversary of EDF in 2022. The campaign will include the 5th European Parliament of Persons with Disabilities and several other activities. The campaign should focus on diversity, social justice and human rights in Europe, as well as tackle the negative effects of populism.
  6. Was informed of the results of the external evaluation on the implementation of the International Cooperation Strategy 2019-2022. The evaluation showed that the Strategy is being successfully implemented. It also shows that our influence towards the EU has grown. It states that EDF became a strong focal point to gather the views of European DPOs.
  7. Adopted EDF’s updated data protection policy. The policy is available on our website .
  8. Received feedback from EDF members regarding the Portuguese EU Presidency of the EU, and upcoming EU presidencies, including Slovenia and France. This feedback included the planned events on disability and mobility under the Slovenian Presidency as well as priorities for the French Presidency.
  9. Was presented financial information, including the interim accounts as of July 30. You can read our final accounts from 2020.