The European Commission on Thursday declined to propose new legislation in response to the ‘My Voice, My Choice” initiative on abortion access, instead pointing to existing EU funds. Campaigners nevertheless hailed the move as a “historic day”.

The ‘My Voice, My Choice’ initiative, which gathered the required one million signatures last September, notably asked the Commission to propose new legislation creating a voluntary fund to help people who cannot access abortion in their country travel to another EU state.

“It is not necessary to propose a new legal instrument,” the Commission said, adding that the tools already exist to achieve the initiative’s objectives. The EU executive pointed to the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+), which aims to reduce health inequalities and ensure that vulnerable people have access to essential health services.

However, for the first time the Commission said EU money under the ESF+ could be used to support abortion access, by adding it to the list of eligible areas.

This could allow people who need to travel for an abortion to have some costs, such as transport, covered. For now, only 10 EU countries have expressed interest, according Hadja Lahbib, the EU’s equality commissioner.

“It is up to the member states to act, which is why we are proposing this instrument; it is up to them to decide whether they want to use it,” Lahbib said.

A question of competences

Responsibility therefore remains with EU countries, which select projects, disburse funds and set up management and control systems under the ESF+.

“The ESF+ can support the efforts of these member states while leaving them the necessary autonomy to determine how and under what conditions access to safe and legal abortion will be ensured,” the Commission said in a press release.

It stressed that abortion policy falls under national competence and that any mechanism must remain “fully neutral” and cannot “specifically target women coming from member states where abortion … would not be legally possible.”

A decision that struggles to convince

The Commission’s response sparked mixed reactions.

“After years, months, and days of work, I can say that today is a victory for women in Europe, and today is a good day for democracy in Europe,” said Nika Kovač of ‘My Voice, My Choice’. “What is historic today is that, for the first time, the European Commission has been very vocal in stating that EU funds can be used to guarantee access to safe abortion care.”

She said she was disappointed that the Commission did not allocate additional funding. However, “what matters most is that the money actually reaches women – that they are able to travel, have their hotel costs covered and access abortion care.”

For Manon Aubry, the Commission’s decision is a “first step” but “falls far short of the demand put forward by more than one million citizens and supported by the European Parliament”.

“While women die every year because they lack access to abortion care, proposing the use of an existing fund without increasing it is clearly insufficient”, she added.

Intense lobbying

As recently as Wednesday, a group of 105 MEPs had sent a letter to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen saying they would explore political and legal avenues if the executive failed to provide a satisfactory follow-up to the initiative.

On the same day, the prime ministers of Denmark, Estonia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden urged von der Leyen to “take steps to define how ‘My Voice, My Choice’ could be implemented in practice”, while the European Parliament adopted a resolution echoing the initiative’s demands.

While lobbying has intensified in recent days, the initiative has long been divisive. Earlier in February, the ECR group – whose members are largely opposed to abortion – deployed a banner in the European Parliament in Strasbourg to oppose the initiative.

The move came in response to a similar action in December by The Left group, a long-standing supporter of the campaign, which had urged the Commission to back the initiative.

“The fight does not stop here: we will not give up until all European women have access to this fundamental right,” Aubry concluded.

(bms, aw)