Guaranteeing persons with disabilities to have support in society, good education, a job and access to all areas, versus just supporting actions that segregate and make us invisible. That is what is at stake in the negotiations for the next EU budget, and we are not off to a good
Yannis Vardaskatanis
Guaranteeing persons with disabilities to have support in society, good education, a job and access to all areas, versus just supporting actions that segregate and make us invisible.
That is what is at stake in the negotiations for the next EU budget, and we are not off to a good start.
This is all the more serious as the EU often funds innovative, inclusive solutions that EU member states like to ignore, such as the JobImpuls programme.
However, that might not be the case in the future.
The European Commission’s proposal rolls back many of the protections and provisions guiding countries to spend with disability rights in mind.
First, it did away with the so-called ‘enabling conditions’ for using the EU Funds.
These are the rules that authorities (countries, agencies) must follow when spending EU money.
They currently direct managing authorities and organisations to follow international human rights treaties, including the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
The commission intends to replace them with so-called ‘Horizontal Principles’.
These new principles do not mention the need to implement the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, despite being the only international human rights treaty ratified by the EU itself.
The proposals are also less assertive on the now-existing prohibition to fund segregating residential institutions and the obligation to promote solutions that enable independent living.
This means that innovative projects, which often rely on EU funds, will risk disappearing – while projects that exclude and harm could be allowed to continue.
Less money, more problems
The lead negotiator for the Socialists & Democrats Carla Tavares said “Our Union simply cannot face new geopolitical, economic and social challenges while (…) implementing reforms at the expense of our farmers, our regions, or the most vulnerable in society”.
This is another worry of the disability movement. Even if conditions are strengthened to invest in human rights-based projects, there will be less money to do implement them.
The amount dedicated to social actions is now lower when inflation is taken into account, and the ‘pot’ now needs to be distributed to more eligible actions than before, with some infrastructure projects included in social spending.
There is no strict rule on exactly how much money should be ringfenced for specific social inclusion projects. These are activities aimed specifically at promoting equal opportunities, non-discrimination, active participation and socio-economic integration of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion.
Instead, the commission further complicated access and scrutiny of the amount made available for social funding by not continuing the stand-alone European Social Fund Plus.
Initiatives on disability inclusion will now have to compete with a wider pool of initiatives as part of the behemoth National and Regional Partnership Plans.
Civil society, which is already under insurmountable pressure, will now be competing for policymakers’ attention within a large envelope that includes funding for many other entities, including cities and farmers.
This must be solved by allocating a part of the budget directly to social inclusion projects that advance human rights.
This means specific actions supporting marginalised people – disabled people, LGBTQ+ people, those experiencing homelessness. It must be ringfenced and at least match the amount we receive now in the European Social Fund Plus.
Disabled people are worried
EU funding has been an important lever for disability inclusion, often replacing national funding where disability is forgotten. If the Commission’s proposal is not improved, progress will stop.
100 million people will be further excluded.
The European Parliament showed its willingness to change the original proposal when it asked the commission to adapt the National Partnership Plans. It must ask for more.
We need the rules of engagement to explicitly exclude projects that end up segregating and harming us.
We need more money, specifically channelled for social inclusion.
We need to guarantee that someone is ‘watching the watchers’. National monitoring will not be enough. The European Commission, civil society, and independent experts must have access and powers to stop funding that damages human rights.
Politicians keep talking about a ‘competitive Europe’, but Europe’s ‘competitive advantage’ lies in its people, its diversity and its equal opportunities for all..
The EU budget is a critical tool to make that happen.
