The EU’s measures to support people with disabilities have had little tangible impact on their daily lives, regrets the EU Court of Auditors.
In a report published on Thursday 12 October, it reveals that equality indicators have changed little over the last decade. For example, only 50.8% of people with disabilities had a job in 2021, compared with 75% for the population as a whole, a gap almost identical to that recorded in 2014.
“People with disabilities in the EU still face an uphill struggle getting a job and fighting poverty, as well as barriers to their freedom of movement”, laments Stef Blok, who led the audit.
2021-2030 strategy
While social policy is primarily the responsibility of the Member States, the EU’s role is to support and coordinate. The report finds that EU countries devote an average of 2.2% of their GDP to disability - an amount they can supplement with EU funds, including the ESF+, the ERDF, the Recovery and Resilience Facility and Erasmus+.
The European Commission is responsible for implementing the 2021-2030 EU Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and supervises budgetary support for this. However, notes the Court of Auditors, the EU funding programmes for 2021-2027 mentioned in the strategy do not have specific spending categories for the rights of people with disabilities.
At the same time, the Court of Auditors is of the view that the achievement of the strategy’s objectives is hampered by the lack of agreement in the EU Council on the horizontal directive on equal treatment and the incomplete transposition of the accessibility directive.
Finally, it believes that the EU has not sufficiently reviewed its legislation to ensure compliance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
Mutual recognition
In addition, the criteria for assessing disability status differ from one EU country to another, compromising de facto mutual recognition and the free movement of the people concerned.
These differences also prevent the European Commission from having an overview of the situation of disabled people in the EU, due to the lack of comparable data.
At the time of the audit, the European Disability Card had not yet been presented. It should facilitate short-term travel within the EU, but will not address issues such as the continuity of support when moving house (see EUROPE 13244/1).
Currently, a quarter of the EU population aged 16 and over, equivalent to 87 million people, claim to have a physical or mental disability. The Court of Auditors warns that this figure is set to rise as the population ages.
The report: https://aeur.eu/f/915 (Original version in French by Hélène Seynaeve)