European Disability Card

Key points

The EESC:

• underlines that the non-mutual recognition of disability among EU Member States hinders the availability of support measures for persons with disabilities, implying a direct denial of their rights to travel and/or move to other EU countries;

• considers crucial to complement the launch of the European Disability Card with measures, both at European and national level, aimed at improving the general accessibility of built environments, transport, services and goods;

• calls for the European Commission to choose the form of a regulation as legislative instrument, as this would ensure that there are no differences in implementation at national level;

• asks for access to all forms of services, benefits and discounts already granted at national level to be included in the scope of the Card;

• recommends that the European Disability Card provide the possibility to grant access to benefits on a temporary basis when a person with a disability has moved to a Member State to study or to work and is waiting for the recognition of his/her disability status;

• believes that the card must be in physical form with digital capabilities, fully accessible and with a standardised ID size, including information about the personal assistance and/or accompanying person for the owner of the card;

• suggests that the European Disability Card legislation must include an EU-level, fully accessible website, with an easy-to-read version and sign language availability, available in all EU languages, providing practical information for every country as well as a EU-wide and national awareness-raising campaigns in all EU;

• considers that the EU Parking Card and the EU Disability Card should remain physically separate;

• stresses the importance for EU institutions to maintain close collaboration with persons with disabilities, as well as EU-level, national, regional and local representative organisations of persons with disabilities (DPOs) in the development, execution and later assessment of the European Disability Card;

• asks for the full compliance of the Card with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)^[1] to protects the personal information of the user.

[1]           OJ L 119, 4.5.2016, p. 1.