Study visit on the (mis)use of EU funding to advance deinstitutionalisation in Bulgaria
Introduction
The historical deinstitutionalisation reform in Bulgaria led to the closure of all large institutions for disabled children and most large institutions for disabled adults. The transfer of residents to small group homes has bettered the infrastructure and the living conditions, but has not advanced the right to independent living. There have been improvements: most disabled people no longer live in large institutions, with poor infrastructure, sharing rooms with 20 or more people, in remote locations, with no connections to the rest of the society. However, thousands of disabled people that, on paper, live in the community, are trapped in smaller versions of the same institutions of the past.
The EU has ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in 2009, and by Bulgaria in 2012Article 19 of the CRPD recognizes the right of disabled people to live independently in the community, which requires that “state parties [should] ensure that public or private funds are not spent on maintaining, renovating, establishing, building or creating any form of institution or institutionalization” (General Comment 5). The Guidelines on deinstitutionalisation, including in emergencies, adopted by the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2022, reiterate this obligation, and call for investments in institutions to end and for any state or private funds to be used instead towards supporting the right to independent living.
Article 26 of the European Union (EU) Charter of Fundamental Rights states that “the Union recognises and respects the right of persons with disabilities to benefit from measures designed to ensure their independence, social and occupational integration and participation in the life of the community.” Article 21 of the Charter prohibits discrimination on any ground, including disability.
The EU’s cohesion funding, which aims to strengthen economic, territorial and social cohesion, is bound by these international and European standards. Cohesion funding can contribute to independent living by supporting access to mainstream services, and by building support services in the community for disabled people. However, the European Network on Independent Living (ENIL) and the Network of In- dependent Experts (NIE) have long been aware of the misuse of EU funding to finance the building and refurbishing of segregated settings.
The aim of the report is to highlight how the EU funding has not supported the advancement of independent living in Bulgaria, and it is instead being used to reinforce segregation of disabled children and adults. We explored how EU funds have been used in Bulgaria to support the national deinstitutionalisation strategy, by visting a number of EU-funded projects which are labelled as supporting independent living for disabled people. We identified elements of concern and build recommendations to ensure that in the future, no EU money is spent in Bulgaria or elsewhere to further exclude disabled people. Instead, we suggest how it can be used to improve access to independent living, for social inclusion and full participation of disabled people in society.