Dear Secretary General Blanchet,
First of all, we would like to thank you for the work that the Council has done on the European Disability Card and congratulate you on the swift agreement reached on the Card.
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.
If this is true, we urge you to put the translation of the Disability Card Directive on the “high priority” list of the lawyer-linguists to be done before April. We have also informed Minister Karine Lalieux of the Belgian Presidency about this problem, and we have asked her to follow up on political 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