Validity Foundation has submitted a briefing to the Irish Government calling for the reinstatement of disability rights conditionality in the European Union’s next long-term budget, the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2028-2034.
Under the current 2021-2027 framework, Member States must satisfy two enabling conditions before accessing EU structural funds: a horizontal condition requiring compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), and a thematic condition requiring a credible strategy for the transition from institutional to community-based care. The European Commission’s July 2025 proposal for the next MFF removes both.
The removal comes despite clear evidence of harm even while the conditions have been in force. The EU co-funded FURI project, in which Validity was an international partner, examined structural fund spending across Bulgaria, Czechia, Greece, Hungary, Poland and Romania and identified 1.1 billion euro allocated across 63 EU-funded projects enabling fundamental rights violations, including the institutionalisation of persons with disabilities. It is entirely foreseeable that removing the conditions altogether would intensify such violations. The proposal also runs counter to the Commission’s own enhanced EU Disability Strategy, published in May 2026, which commits to an EU Alliance for Independent Living and to monitoring deinstitutionalisation.
The budget process is now at a critical juncture. The Council agreed partial negotiating mandates in June 2026 which left the horizontal questions, including rights conditionality, open. These will now be negotiated under Ireland’s Presidency of the Council, which began on 1 July, with Member States seeking a political agreement by the end of the year.
The briefing, addressed to the Department of Children, Disability and Equality, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Ireland’s Permanent Representation to the EU, asks that Ireland’s Presidency:
- work for the reinstatement of the CRPD and deinstitutionalisation enabling conditions and ensure this is reflected in the Council’s mandate for the sectoral trilogues;
- include disability rights conditionality on the agenda of EPSCO Council sessions;
- preserve the European Parliament’s positions on conditionality in the trilogues Ireland chairs;
- support monitoring indicators that distinguish EU spending on institutions from spending on community-based services.
Ireland has ratified the CRPD Optional Protocol, placing it among a minority of EU Member States that have accepted international oversight of their compliance. Further, its Presidency programme names the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights in accordance with Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union, among its three core priorities. There can be no doubt that the right of persons with disabilities to live as equal citizens in their communities should be a core value of EU democracy.
The briefing is endorsed by the European Network on Independent Living (ENIL), the Center for Legal Aid – Voice in Bulgaria, the Network of Independent Experts (NIE), the Alliance of Women with Disabilities and Sounds of Autism Inc.
Dr Suzanne Doyle Guilloud, Policy Specialist at Validity Foundation, said:
“The EU cannot fund the segregation of disabled people and call it cohesion. For two budget cycles, the rules said EU money must respect the rights of persons with disabilities. Deleting those rules now, with the evidence of harm in front of us, is a choice. Ireland’s Presidency has both the credibility and the responsibility to reverse it.”
The full briefing is available here. The FURI project synthesis report is available here.
For further information, contact Suzanne Doyle Guilloud at suzanne@validity.ngo.