Which topics should the Polish EU Presidency advance?

In The Spirit of Law (1748) the French philosopher Montesquieu described the separation of governmental powers into a legislature, an executive and a judicary which is the core principle of any modern political system. Political entities with a strong federal structure, like the US, Germany or the European Union have two legislative champers, one to represent the citizens and one to represent the regions.

In the political system of the European Union, the legislature consists of the European Parliament which represents the citizens and the Council which represents the Member States. The EU Council is chaired by a presidency which rotates between the 27 Member States every six months.

Since the 1st of January, Poland is holding the presidency. Because the function gives the country the ability to shape the agenda of the EUs´ co-legislature, ENIL has submitted policy recommendations to the Polish Permanent Representation in Brussels.

Which policy topics do we want the Polish to advance?

Since it is societal barriers to equal participation constitute disability, it follows that all disabled people experience discrimination in their daily lives. The concluding observations of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilites confirms for every state party confirms this empirically.

To reduce discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation when accessing social security, including healthcare, education, housing and goods and services, the EU is working on a directive on equal treatment.

The directive is fraught with two problems. First of all, the content has been watered down by the Member States to a point there it barely contains what is needed to be effective. Thus, ENIL is asking the Polish presidency to strengthen the directive. Most importantly, we need a paragraph stating that disabled citizens in institutions must not be discriminated against when applying for any of the services mentioned in preparation to leaving the institution.

The EU adopts legislation and to achieve its legislative objectives, it distributes funding. Since the EU is not a state, it can not raise taxes. Every seven years, the Member States grant it financial resources through the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF).

The current MFF has a volume of EUR 1,074 billion. The MFF consists of various funding programmes which channel funding towards various thematic areas. The European Social Fund and the Fund for Regional Development are the programmes used, to finance disability services.

Although the EU funds personal assistance schemes, significant resources are going into institutions. ENIL continues to fight for a redirection of these resources, into projects which support Independent Living projects.

At the end of 2027 the MFF needs to be renewed. Political discussions are starting now. ENIL is asking the Polish Presidency to support strict ban on the funding of segregating services like institutions and sheltered employment.

The EU was not founded to advance human rights but to ensure peace and to establish a single market which would and did create prosperity.

To ensure fair competition in the single market, there is strict EU legislation on how governments can subsidise undertakings, e.g. Companies, public entities and non-profit organisations. Subsidies going to such undertakings are called state aid.

The so-called General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER) allows national public authorities to financial support sheltered employment. Sheltered employment was declared a discriminatory practice in General Comment No. 8. Also, there is empirical evidence about their ineffectiveness in integrating disabled citizens into regular work and about their exploitative nature.[1]

National authorities, channel significant financial resources into sheltered employment. For example:

• The Swedish government is subsidising the provider of sheltered employment Samhall Aktiebolag with EUR 500 million per year. Samhall is employing 19 135 disabled people.   
• The government of Bavaria in Germany is subsidising the construction of a sheltered workshop for 240 disabled people with EUR 10,6 million.

ENIL is asking the EU to change the GBER, so it becomes more difficult to subsidise sheltered employment and more resources are available for sustainable measure of employment support, for example, wage contributions, assistance at work, the adaptation of premises.

ENIL is asking the Polish Presidency of the EU Council to support those changes.

The EU is working on a regulation which, if adopted, would violate human rights of disabled citizens. The regulation on cooperation in matters relating to the protection of adults aims to implement the 2000 Convention on the International Protection of Adults of the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH Convention).

The purpose of the regulation is to implement a Convention which predates the UN CRPD and thus contains outdated concepts, not based on the idea of self-determination and freedom. Instead, the idea that people who allegedly can not take care of their own interests due to an insufficiency of personal faculties, have to be placed under the authority of public authorities or private individuals dominates the regulation and the HCCH Convention.

“Protection” is confused with “repression” and ”deprivation of liberty”.

The regulation intends to establish mandatory registers of all disabled people deprived of their legal capacity and under the authority in the EU. Those registers would greatly enhance the ability of governments to control disabled citizens.

Introducing registers for ethnic or religious minorities would be unimaginable but for disabled citizens this kind of treatment is apparently okay. ENIL is opposing this regulation. We are trying to find allies but so far no EU institution, nor organisation fully sees the repressive nature of this proposed legislation.

ENIL is asking the Polish EU presidency to remove the proposed registers from the regulation.

The functioning of the EU single market rests on the existence of unemployment, healthcare and pension schemes everywhere in the EU. Personal budget schemes are not available in many EU countries, creating a barrier for disabled citizens who want to work and reside freely.

To end this discrimination, ENIL will work towards the adoption of a directive on personal budgets at the EU-level. We are asking the Polish Presidency to support those efforts.

You can download the full recommendations as pdf here and as word here.

For questions, send an email for florian.sanden@enil.eu

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[1] https://enil.eu/avoiding-the-sheltered-employment-trap/; https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09589287211002435; https://easpd.eu/resources-detail/fostering-employment-through-sheltered-workshops-reality-trends-and-next-steps/