Hadja Lahbib, European Commissioner for Equality, met with a delegation led by our President, Gunta Anca, on 29 September to discuss the European Commission’s actions on disability rights.
The meeting focused on 4 concrete topics:
- The ‘Enhanced’ EU Disability Rights Strategy
- The EU budget for 2028-2034
- Advances to the proposed Equal Treatment Directive
- Preparedness
We discussed the ‘Enhanced’ EU Disability Rights Strategy. Our delegations welcomed the initiatives and the consultation process but expressed the need for binding actions.
The proposed actions on employment have potential if they lead to binding laws created with the stronger involvement of representative organisations of persons with disabilities.
We also expressed our hopes that the Independent Living Alliance of policymakers and stakeholders will make more EU funding available to combat segregation.
The Commissioner assured us that she is promoting equality, including the rights of persons with disabilities, across the European Union’s priorities and with national governments. The Commissioner underlined that her different portfolios give her a more complete view of the barriers and stressed the importance of maintaining an intersectional approach, focusing on implementing existing policies.
We then underlined how the EU budget has supported disability inclusion and the risks that the next one will fall short of the funding needed, as well as the lack of safeguards to ensure that funding awarded by the European Union will be used in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
We presented preliminary findings from an upcoming EDF report on national anti-discrimination laws, which can support the Commission and the disability movement in continuing to advocate for adopting the Equal Treatment Directive, which has been stuck in negotiations for 18 years. Commissioner Lahbib thanked us for providing such useful material and committed to continuing to work on unblocking the Directive.
We also discussed preparedness and crisis response, focusing on current plans to promote disability inclusion in the actions of the EU Preparedness Strategy.
Gunta Anca, President of the European Disability Forum, said:
We had a very open and constructive meeting, where I expressed the need for policies that improve the quality of life of persons with disabilities. I also underlined that, for these policies to be effective, organisations of persons with disabilities need to be well-resourced and involved from the beginning of the process.