Participating in the European Independent Living Day

On 5 May 2026, disabled people and allies across Europe marked European Independent Living Day with a clear and uncompromising message to the European Union and national governments: We do not need more strategies! We need to enforce rights, end segregation and put all disabled people in control of our lives!

Across the EU, around 90 million people (approx. one in four people) have some sort of impairment. Yet millions remain excluded from basic rights, including the ability to live independently and be part of our communities.

Despite years of strategies, resolutions and funding programmes, disabled people across the EU are still being segregated, institutionalised and denied control over our own lives. The right to Independent Living, guaranteed under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD), remains systematically violated.

The European Network on Independent Living (ENIL), together with members and allies across Europe, is calling out the EU’s ongoing failure to turn rights into reality.Independent living is not optional. It is a fundamental human right, and it is being denied every day across the European Union.

This was the basic theme of a conference organised by ENIL which saw the participation of the highest officials of the St. Lazarus Foundation of the Order. The Conference primarily focussed on the legal capacity and the right of disabled people to make decisions about their own lives.