The EUD policy team attended on April 21 and 22 the EU Diversity Month 2026 Launch Event, organised by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers, and granting European Capitals of Inclusion and Diversity Awards. The event brought together 27 national Diversity Charters with over 17,500 signatories from private and public organisations, NGOs and trade unions, alongside EU institutions, social partners, and civil society organisations, to exchange good practices and advance commitments on workplace diversity and inclusion across Europe.
EUD contributed actively to two thematic workshops. In the workshop on AI and diversity at the workplace, EUD raised the importance of co-designing AI tools from the earliest stages of development, ensuring that deaf people and their representative organisations are involved as full partners rather than consulted after the development of the tools.
In the workshop on sharing promising practices and working together, EUD highlighted the dual framing of deaf people in the diversity landscape: as a disability group entitled to reasonable accommodation and CRPD-compliant support, and as a linguistic minority whose sign languages deserve recognition and protection alongside other minority languages in the EU. EUD also shared good practice examples of tripartite partnerships between public authorities, employers and deaf people’s organisations in supporting employment inclusion.
EUD’s participation reflects its ongoing engagement with the broader European diversity and inclusion agenda, and its commitment to ensuring that the deaf community’s perspectives are present wherever employment, AI, and inclusive policy are being shaped.
