Feedback by ELFAC in response to the public consultation of the Citizens Omnibus Initiative launched by the European Commission.
The Citizens Omnibus aims to set up a process to reduce administrative burdens in EU legislation that have a direct impact on the daily lives of people legally residing in the EU.
The goal is to ensure they can fully benefit from the single market without facing disproportionate administrative or legal barriers, especially in cross-border situations.
It will provide an opportunity for targeted amendments to EU legislation that cut red tape and make rules simpler.
ELFAC’s contribution
In 2025, 23.4% of EU households had children, with 37.6% of those households having two children and 12.2% having three or more. Given that a large share of EU households are families—and large families in particular—they represent a key stakeholder group in efforts to reduce administrative barriers in cross-border situations and improve the daily lives of EU citizens. Furthermore, with 24% of children currently born to foreign-born mothers (defined by Eurostat as mothers born outside their reporting country), EU families are becoming increasingly mobile and transnational. This structural reality is reflected in Eurostat’s 2026 Demography Report, which notes that 14 million EU citizens now permanently reside in a Member State other than that of their citizenship.
Family mobility is driven by diverse, interconnected factors—chiefly career and economic opportunities. According to the European Commission’s Annual Report on Intra-EU Labour Mobility, approximately 10.1 million working-age EU citizens live and work abroad. Crucially, this mobility is no longer exclusively youth-dominated; data reveal that 1.27 million EU citizens aged 40–70 relocated within the past decade, indicating that a substantial portion of cross-border workers move during their peak family-rearing years. For these mobile workforces, managing family expenses is an urgent priority, given that child-rearing remains a primary poverty risk across the Union, second only to job loss. Beyond economic migration, transnational travel is vital for maintaining proximity to extended family networks, which provide essential social safety nets. Additionally, leisure travel plays an indispensable role in preventing parental burnout, reducing stress hormones, and mitigating chronic health risks (Harvard Business Review), while promoting cross-cultural exchange and fostering a unified European identity.
While the EU successfully promotes intra-EU mobility through initiatives like the European Student Card (ESC)—which, by the end of 2025, reached a milestone of 4.4 million cards issued—families lack equivalent institutional support at the European level. Paired with the Erasmus+ App, the ESC offers students streamlined mobility, universal digital status recognition, and centralized access to services and discounts. In stark contrast, families enjoy no such unified mechanism. Although Member States issue national large family cards offering critical discounts on transportation, education, utilities, taxation, housing, and leisure, these benefits do not automatically cross borders. To access local resources when traveling or relocating, a mobile family must navigate a separate administrative process in each destination country. This bureaucratic burden penalizes large families, restricting mobility and complicating essential travel. Moreover, even when families successfully navigate local systems, they lack a centralized portal to locate participating organizations and regional benefits.
The rapid, successful deployment of the European Student Card Initiative—where over half of European higher education institutions have transitioned to digital status verification—demonstrates that centralized, digital status frameworks effectively support targeted populations across borders. Translating this model into a European Large Family Card would leverage an existing, proven digital framework to eliminate fragmented bureaucracy. By standardizing large-family status recognition across all 27 Member States, the EU can alleviate financial burdens, ensure that the right to free movement—guaranteed under Article 21 TFEU—is accessible to all 14 million EU families, and foster a stronger unified European identity.
ELFAC calls on the European Commission and the co-legislators to establish a European Large Family Card, underpinned by a dedicated digital platform, as a concrete and immediate step towards a Europe that works for all its families.
(Author of the contribution: Delia Bousquet, intern of ELFAC)