{"id":34281,"date":"2026-05-07T10:40:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T10:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/34281\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T10:40:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T10:40:11","slug":"european-commission-vows-to-make-europe-accessible-for-people-with-disabilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/34281\/","title":{"rendered":"European Commission vows to make Europe accessible for people with disabilities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Around 90 million people in the European Union live with a disability.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt could be you, it could be me,\u201d Hadja Lahbib, European Commissioner for Equality, told Euronews\u2019s flagship morning show, Europe Today.<\/p>\n

\"Apple<\/a><\/p>\n

Apple podcast<\/p>\n

\"Spotify<\/a><\/p>\n

Spotify podcast<\/p>\n

\"Castbox<\/a><\/p>\n

Castbox podcast<\/p>\n

Lahbib presented the European Commission\u2019s \u201cEnhancing the Strategy for the rights of persons with disabilities up to 2030\u201d communication, a halfway check of its 2021-2030 Strategy for the Rights of persons with disabilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have achieved a lot in the five previous years, but there are a lot of things that need to be fixed,\u201d said Lahbib.<\/p>\n

The reinforced EU strategy, presented on Wednesday, aims to put a \u201cstronger focus on implementation, delivery on the ground and real impact for people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lahbib said the strategy listens to the needs of people with disabilities, aiming to mainstream accessibility from technology and artificial intelligence to democratic participation in elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we are aware that their first requests are three things: they want to be more included in the labour market, more independent living, and more accessibility in general,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Push for independent living and inclusion in the labour market<\/p>\n

The enhanced strategy includes launching an Alliance for Independent Living to replace institutions with community-based services.<\/p>\n

Lahbib stressed that everyone should decide for themselves with whom and where they want to live.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is what we call deinstitutionalisation, to be sure that a person with disabilities can live their own life independently, and it is about their dignity and their choice,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The Commission\u2019s communication also strengthens its efforts to improve the labour market and accessibility for people with disabilities.<\/p>\n

One of the renewed objectives includes improving the implementation of the Disability Employment Package.<\/p>\n

For disability groups across Europe, the Commission’s initiative lacks ambition.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Disability Strategy has the right words, but it lacks teeth and strength,” Yannis Vardakastanis, president of the European Disability Forum, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

We renew our call for stronger measures, dedicated funding, and for the Commission to put the Union of Equality back on its political agenda,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Around 90 million people in the European Union live with a disability. \u201cIt could be you, it could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6991,15,256,22803,40,22801,22802],"class_list":{"0":"post-34281","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-europe","8":"tag-disability","9":"tag-european","10":"tag-european-commission","11":"tag-european-disability-forum","12":"tag-european-union","13":"tag-hadja-lahbib","14":"tag-labour-market"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}