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European Commission - Speech [Check Against Delivery] Speech by Commissioner Lahbib at the 30th anniversary of the European Association of Service Providers for People with Disabilities Brussels, 5 October 2026 I am pleased to be here to celebrate your 30 years of supporting people with disabilities. And yes, thirty years of pushing us at the European Commission to do better. You have been an important partner for th...
European Commission - Speech [Check Against Delivery] Speech by Commissioner Lahbib at the 30th anniversary of the European Association of Service Providers for People with Disabilities Brussels, 5 October 2026 I am pleased to be here to celebrate your 30 years of supporting people with disabilities. And yes, thirty years of pushing us at the European Commission to do better. You have been an important partner for the Commission. Look at what you have built. Today your members run 40,000 services across Europe. More than ten million people with disabilities count on them. And behind those services stand nearly two million support workers who show up every day. You bring us expertise and something even more valuable: you bring us closer to the daily lives of people living with disabilities. Today, after three decades, you are turning a page. The European Association of Service Providers for Persons with Disabilities will keep that name for just a few more minutes. You are about to unveil a new name and a new identity, so I will be careful not to spoil the surprise. But whatever the new name, your mission stays the same: helping people with disabilities live the lives they choose. Last Thursday, here in Brussels, I met Rajaa and many others gathered at the Freedom Drive organised by the European Network on Independent Living. Hundreds of people with disabilities came from across Europe. They went through the streets, with music playing, to demand more freedoms and the right to live independently. I came away inspired. Earlier this year, I brought together twenty young Europeans with disabilities in Brussels to talk about the barriers they still face. One of them was Adéla. On her way to Brussels, she was stopped from boarding her flight with her wheelchair battery. She was given a choice: miss the flight or leave the battery behind. Adéla came to Brussels without it. Think about the irony. She was coming to Brussels to talk about barriers, and the journey itself became a barrier. That story stayed with me. For Adéla, accessibility meant one very concrete thing: getting on a plane with the wheelchair she depends on. Moving through the world should not be a fight every step of the way. Her story also reminds us of an important principle: nothing about people with disabilities without people with disabilities. That is what drives our enhanced Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Together with the UN Convention, it is our compass. But a strategy is only useful if people can feel the difference in their daily lives. This is where support services come in. The right support, at the right moment, can change someone's life. It can decide whether you take a job or turn it down, whether you live in your community or apart from it. And this concerns any one of us. Any of us could live with a disability one day. We will present a Framework for Social Services of Excellence for Persons with Disabilities. We want better services for people who need them, and better jobs, skills, and working conditions for the people who provide them. At the heart of our enhanced Strategy is a simple idea: you should be able to live your own life, decide where you live, and who you live with. These are ordinary choices, but for too many people with disabilities, they are still out of reach. Too many people with disabilities still live in institutions, cut off from the life around them, so we are launching an EU Alliance for Independent Living, supporting community-based services and independent living centres across Europe. EU funding must support services that let people live independently, in their communities. Technology can remove barriers that once seemed set in stone: a screen reader, an adapted wheelchair, or an AI tool that helps someone communicate and work. Later this month, we will launch an initiative on assistive technologies. And then there is work. A job is a salary, of course, but it is also independence, colleagues, a reason to get up in the morning. Yet today, only around half of working-age people with disabilities have a job. We can do a lot better. We are consulting European social partners on a new initiative to help people enter the labour market and give equal opportunities at work. We will also strengthen implementation of the Disability Employment Package, helping employers remove barriers to hiring, adapt workplaces, and give people the chance to build a career. People with disabilities do not need lower expectations. They need fewer barriers. Opportunity begins early. School is where many of those doors first open, or first close. So we are helping early-childhood services spot developmental delays sooner and step in earlier. Next year, we will also launch an initiative on accessibility in higher education. Erasmus+ and our other programmes must make learning more inclusive. Disability policy does not exist in a separate box. Our Strategy connects with the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan, the renewed Child Guarantee, our Anti-Poverty Strategy, and our wider equality policies, and with the new Care Deal announced by the President. Our job is to make sure they all work together. This is where organisations like yours matter so much. It is why the Commission supports you and other European disability organisations through partnership agreements. You are a bridge between Brussels and everyday life. We write the policies. You are on the ground. You see if they work, in a day centre in Lisbon or a family home in Tallinn. You chose “building an architecture of inclusion” as the theme of this conference. I like that image. Inclusion really is something we build every day, brick by brick. And the people who will live in this building must be among its architects. Congratulations on your first 30 years and on the new chapter ahead. You can count on the European Commission as a strong partner. SPEECH/26/2067 <@rel_link@>
Speech Brief