Following the publication of the 2019 Country Reports, the European Expert Group on the Transition from Institutional to Community-based Care (EEG) prepared reflections on their content to provide expert support to the European Commission in the drafting of the 2019 Country Specific Recommendations.
Since 2009, the EEG has collaborated with the European Union (EU) to advance the transition from institutional to community-based care in Europe. The EEG has closely followed and worked on the European Semester process by providing data to the European Commission on the state of deinstitutionalisation in various EU Member States, analysing Country Reports and Country Specific Recommendations, supporting national authorities and civil society in following and feeding into the process.
The EEG is pleased that deinstitutionalisation and community-based care are explicitly featured in the majority (18 CRs) of the 2019 Country Reports, namely Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain. We are glad to see that many of our concerns have been included in the relevant Country Reports.
The EEG strongly believes that the need to further and better invest in the transition from institutional to community-based care, including the development of family and community-based services, should be included in the 2019 Country Specific Recommendations (CSRs) of all Member States.
However, for some EU Member States these priorities should be particularly highlighted in the Country Specific Recommendations, given the urgency of the issue.
Read the full assessment of the European Commission Country reports here.