In the run-up to the UN international day of care and support on 29th October, COFACE and the European Committee of the Regions organised a European Round Table on family carers. This Round table fostered debate on the realities and support needs of family carers in Europe today. It shed light on the role of European policies and legal frameworks to support families with disabilities and/or in need of care through robust community-based intervention models at the local and regional levels.
During this round table, the COFACE Disability platform for the rights of persons with disabilities and their families (founded in 1998) outlined the needs of family carers today based on its European Charter for Family Carers. Different stakeholders from the EU institutions and civil society reacted from their different perspectives.
Key takeaways include:
- Half of the long-term care country reports submitted to the Commission in 2024 focus on family/informal carers. ALL countries should target informal carers with strong measures, to ensure consistent implementation of the European Care Strategy.
- The 2024 EESC opinion on caregivers contains useful recommendations, including setting up a platform to monitor informal care.
- We are in a crucial phase for defining future priorities and flagships of the EU Strategy on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It is time to strengthen the family dimension of the strategy.
- The European Child Guarantee emphasis on children with disabilities can help remove barriers in access to education, and support inclusive education and early childhood intervention.
- The European Charter for Family Carers can be used as a reference tool to understand the needs and adequate responses for family carers, and used as a basis to include family carers as an explicit target group of the European Social Fund Plus.
- One area that needs to be improved is research and data collection on family carers, starting with a European benchmarking study to understand who are the family carers in Europe today.
- The work-life balance rights of carers were also discussed, with calls to re-open the recent 2019 directive to ensure decent carers leave and minimum standards for adequate payment of these leaves.
- The risks of poverty linked to the role of family care were highlighted by different speakers and participants. The upcoming EU Anti-Poverty Strategy promised by the von der Leyen II Commission should be a useful framework for discussion on the links between care and poverty, and for developing measures as appropriate.
- The von der Leyen II Commission is also planning a new EU Gender Equality Strategy, with care as a central point in relation to women’s rights and to fight care stereotypes. It will be important to find complementarity between different strategies covering the reality of family carers.
See the full meeting report here.
Key resources
European Charter for family carers (COFACE Disability, 2024) available in EN/FR and in Easy-to-read version
EESC Opinion on caregivers (EESC, 2024) available in all EU languages
European Care Strategy (Commission, 2022)
Long-term care: The family dimension (COFACE, 2018)
EU Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2021-2030)
Recommendation establishing a European Child Guarantee (Council, 2021)
