Voices & Authors

Research support officer in Eurofound's Working Life unit, working on social dialogue, industrial relations and disability rights. Her 2023 ETUI policy brief, written at the European Social Observatory, drew on Eurostat data showing an EU disability employment gap of 21.4 percentage points in 2022 (from 8.5pp in Luxembourg to 37pp in Ireland) and called for better data collection, social-partner engagement and gender mainstreaming. Holds a PhD in EU law from KU Leuven.

Director of the European Disability Forum (EDF), the umbrella organisation of representative organisations of persons with disabilities in Europe. She has an academic background in public health and 25 years of experience in the field of disability, with a focus on disability-inclusive international development, and was Vice President of Social Platform (2017–2023).

European Commissioner for Equality and for Preparedness and Crisis Management in the 2024–2029 Commission, responsible for implementing the EU Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2021–2030. In May 2026 she presented the Commission's mid-term enhancement of the strategy, which commits to improving implementation of the Disability Employment Package; only about half of the EU's 42.8 million working-age persons with disabilities are employed.

President of the Association for Supported Employment Europe (ASEE), the European umbrella body for national supported employment associations (renamed from EUSE in spring 2024). ASEE's 22 national member associations represent over 1,200 service providers supporting disabled people and people from disadvantaged groups into jobs in the open labour market.

Senior Fellow at Bruegel working on macroeconomics, EU governance and inequality, including fiscal and monetary policy, the EU budget, income and wealth inequality and inclusive growth. His 2023 Bruegel analysis compared EU and US labour-market responses to the financial crisis and the pandemic, including trends in labour-market inactivity.

Labour economist who joined IZA in 2005 and works at the intersection of research, policy advice and scientific management, having held management responsibilities on IZA's executive staff. His empirical research evaluates labour market policies such as training for the unemployed and refugee integration measures, and instruments to reduce hiring discrimination such as anonymous job applications.

Rapporteur for the European Parliament's own-initiative report on the EU strategy for the rights of persons with disabilities post-2024, adopted in plenary on 27 November 2025 (409 in favour, 9 against, 109 abstentions). The report calls for an EU-funded employment and skills guarantee for persons with disabilities and for turning AccessibleEU into a permanent agency.

Hungarian lawyer who in 2009 became the first deaf Member of the European Parliament, using sign language in the chamber, and served as an EPP Group MEP until 2024. He was elected President of the Parliament's Disability Intergroup in December 2009. From 2024 to 2026 he was Hungary's State Secretary for Disability Affairs, and he was re-elected President of the International Committee of Sports for the Deaf in 2025. He led the Hungarian Association of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing from 2005 to 2022.

Dutch labour economist who held the Henri Polak chair in labour relations at the University of Amsterdam from 2003 to 2024 and remains affiliated with its AIAS-HSI institute; he also directed the trade-union scientific bureau De Burcht. With Roos van der Zwan he co-authored a 2021 study using EU-SILC data for 23 European countries which found stricter employment protection associated with better labour market outcomes for people with disabilities, while targeted disability policies had little effect. His broader work covers the labour market, labour relations, inequality and the welfare state.

Executive Vice-President of the European Commission for Social Rights and Skills, Quality Jobs and Preparedness in the 2024–2029 Commission. On 26 November 2025 she gave the Commission's closing statement in the European Parliament's plenary debate on the EU strategy for the rights of persons with disabilities post-2024.

Managing Director of the Association for Supported Employment Europe (ASEE) in Brussels, the European umbrella body for national supported employment associations. She previously worked in European social policy at Eurodiaconia.

In 2018 she became the first woman with a disability elected to the UN CEDAW Committee, which she chaired in 2023–2024. She is Secretary General of the European Disability Forum and chairs its Women's Committee.

Elected President of the European Disability Forum for 2026–2030 at its General Assembly in Limassol in May 2026, having previously served as an EDF Vice-President. Chairperson of SUSTENTO, Latvia's umbrella organisation of disability NGOs, she has more than two decades of experience in European disability rights, including many years as a member of the European Economic and Social Committee.