On Thursday 21 August, the European Disability Forum (EDF) published its annual report for 2024, which it describes as “a year of contrasts”.
The adoption of the directives (see EUROPE 13503/27) on the European Disability Card and the European Parking Card is one of the advances made, as is the first directive against gender-based and domestic violence (see EUROPE 13431/33), with provisions designed to protect women and girls with disabilities.
EDF also continued its work in Ukraine, where its programmes helped to support more than 70,000 people.
In addition, during this election year, the Forum defended the right of persons with disabilities to vote and stand for election, called for accessible political information and secured the re-establishment of the Disability Intergroup in the European Parliament, now supported by over sixty MEPs.
Despite this progress, the contrast, the EDF stresses in its report, is that “equality was relegated to the background and disability did not even merit a mention in the new European Commission’s political guidelines”.
To read the report: https://aeur.eu/f/i5b (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)