Dear Minister Lalieux,
First of all, we would like to thank you for our cooperation on the European Disability Card and congratulate you on the swift agreement reached on the Card, during the Belgian presidency of the EU.
However, we have understood that official adoption of the final text may be in jeopardy because of capacity limitations of the lawyer-linguists in the Council who will still have to translate the agreed text. If this is true, the vote on the text in the plenary session of the European Parliament in April will not be able to take place which means there will be a delay in the adoption.
This, in return, will mean that there will also be delays in the implementation of the European Disability Card and the European Parking Card across the EU, making citizens wait even longer for their promised cards.
Since the information that we received is not official, we would like to ask you to follow up on this issue with the Council secretariat and if it is true, urge them to put the translation of the Disability Card Directive on the “high priority” list to be done before April. We will also inform the President of the Council, Mr Charles Michel, about the problem and ask him to take action on administrative level.
We remain at your disposal should you need further information.
Yours sincerely,
Yannis Vardakastanis – President, European Disability Forum
Pierre Gyselinck – President, Belgian Disability Forum