Name: Committee on Employment and Social Affairs Ordinary meeting
Uploaded: 2026-06-22T14:00:00+00:00
Duration: 9972 s

05:59 - 06:06

All right, colleagues, it's five past, so if I can please ask you to take your seats. We will start.

06:06 - 11:42

Speaker 1

We will start, and we will start with the adoption of the agenda. And if there are no objections, the agenda will be deemed adopted. And it is adopted. For chair's announcements, you have been informed via the technical notes about the interpretation provided today. And dear colleagues, please be informed that speech-to-text automatic transcription and translation is available for accessibility purposes.

So please scan the QR code on posters and select the channel with the language being spoken, and for translation, you can choose your preferred language from the available options in the menu. With regard to official notifications, I would like to inform you that effective 11th of June 2026, MEP András Kulja from the EPP left the EMPL committee as a substitute member, and on 12th of June, MEP Viktor Weiss from EPP assumed the role as substitute member in the EMPL committee, so welcome.

And on appointment of rapporteurs, Johan Danielsson from S&D has been appointed rapporteur on the draft opinion on the 28th regime corporate legal framework. And Brigitte van den Berg from Renew has been appointed rapporteur on the INI report, boosting skills in the Union, opportunities for vocational education and training in times of transition. And for adoption of minutes, if there are no objections, the minutes of the EMPL meeting of the 2nd of June 2026 are deemed adopted. And they are adopted. We then go to point number four on the agenda, the joint EMPL, LIBE and PETI delegation to the 19th session of the Conference of State Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

So for the fourth time now, we had a joint EMPL, LIBE, PETI delegation of six MEPs that joined this meeting called the COSP19. And together with me in New York at the UN, we had from EMPL Mrs. Katrin Langensiepen and Mrs. Giuseppina Princi, and from LIBE Mrs. Assita Kanko, and from PETI Mrs. Rosa Estaràs Ferragut and Mr. Alex Agius Saliba.

The overarching theme for the conference was CRPD at 20, celebrating and consolidating achievements and shaping the next phase of implementation in a changing world, with a series of sub-themes important for persons with disability, notably exploitation, violence and abuse for persons with disabilities, accessible civic engagement, leadership and advocacy in political and public life, and strengthening care and support systems.

In the context of the latter, the EP co-organized an event with the ILO, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and UNICEF on the role of the private sector in creating inclusive care and support for persons with disabilities. Next to myself, Mrs. Rosa Estaràs Ferragut and Mrs. Jozef Princi were speakers at our side events, welcome. And it was very timely as it highlighted the problems that carers and support givers, overall women, are still facing when care and support systems for children and persons with long-term special needs are weak or unavailable, and how employers can support these informal caregivers. Next to this event, the European Parliament was also invited by the OC to join their side event on advancing political participation, accessible parliaments as drivers of disability inclusion, and Katrin Langensiepen was our speaker at this side event.

There were also other side events where we could intervene, in total nine with MEPs as speakers, and I want to thank all of the delegation for a very active participation this year.

I participated in the side event organized by the Commission on supporting organizations of persons with disabilities and civil society and also a UNICEF side event called Play Without Barriers from early intervention to inclusive societies, which was extremely interesting as it showed the importance of play, of this aspect in children's life from early age onwards and how playing supports positive development throughout the lives of children, especially also for young adults with disabilities. In bilateral meetings, we heard from the Commission, EU member state ministers, state secretaries and ambassadors about their agenda when implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

International disability rights organizations underlined the importance of intersection between disability and other important topics such as gender equality and climate change, but also very importantly, the next multiannual financial framework. We also had interesting UN interlocutors, for example, Mrs. Heba Hagrass, who is the Special Rapporteur for Persons with Disabilities, who highlighted the stigmatization of women and mothers of children with disabilities, as well as problems such as forced sterilization still persisting in countries in the world, including also in Europe.