EU One Step Nearer to Reaching Free Motion of Individuals With Disabilities

Major Digest

The EESC is looking for the scope of the Fee proposal for a European Incapacity Card to be expanded to cowl longer stays for work and examine, with the purpose of absolutely reaching freedom of motion of individuals with disabilities within the EU

The European Financial and Social Committee (EESC) has hailed the Fee proposal for a European Incapacity Card and a European Parking Card as step one in the suitable course in direction of enabling individuals with disabilities to maneuver freely across the EU.

“The proposal on the 2 Playing cards is laws of great significance that may have an effect on greater than 80 million Europeans with disabilities,” stated Ioannis Vardakastanis, rapporteur-general for the EESC opinion on the European Incapacity and Parking Playing cards, offered on the EESC plenary session on 14 December, 2023.

“It is a essential step in direction of eradicating severe obstacles and making certain that residents with disabilities, each Europeans and third nation nationals who’ve authorized residence in Member States, can benefit from the very basic precept on which the Union is based – freedom of motion. Primarily based on this, different insurance policies might be constructed sooner or later,” Mr Vardakastanis stated.

Nonetheless, the EESC has warned that the proposal falls in need of eradicating a few of the most vital boundaries to the free motion of European residents with disabilities, particularly the dearth of portability of disability-related advantages the place residents relocate to a different EU nation for work or examine.

In Mr Vardakastanis’s own-initiative opinion, the EESC requires the scope of the proposal to be expanded in order that an individual with a incapacity who has made such a transfer can use the playing cards, on a brief foundation, to proceed receiving advantages linked to public social insurance policies or nationwide social safety techniques.

That is at the moment not the case: when an individual strikes from one Member State to a different, they lose their rights to any disability-related advantages after they cross the border, whereas ready for his or her incapacity to be reassessed within the new Member State. This evaluation course of can take over a yr, and within the transition interval the particular person is left with none recognition or assist.

“We’re asking for the scope to be expanded to make sure that there might be no authorized vacuum and no hole throughout this era within the new nation, in order that an individual with a incapacity is ready to stay with dignity proper from the very begin,” Mr Vardakastanis stated.

Whereas the EESC opinion acknowledges that the portability of disability-related advantages was explicitly excluded from the Fee proposal, it recommends at the very least being barely extra versatile within the particular circumstances of shifting for work or research, including that in the long term, this situation should be tackled extra concretely.

The EESC nonetheless very a lot praises the proposal and the truth that it’s primarily based on the precept of mutual recognition of incapacity standing between Member States. This precept ensures that in quick stays out of the country, individuals with disabilities could have entry to the identical benefits as nationwide card holders with regards to providers, services and actions.

They may profit from the particular situations when utilizing public transport, attending cultural occasions and visiting museums, leisure and sports activities facilities, amusement parks and different facilities, anyplace in Europe. The EU Parking Card will substitute nationwide parking playing cards and assure entry to parking areas reserved for individuals with disabilities all through the EU.

The precept may even be certain that individuals with invisible disabilities will be capable of journey and transfer extra freely across the EU with out having to clarify the specifics of their disabilities or being questioned about their declare for particular situations or preferential therapy.

Within the opinion, the EESC makes a number of recommendations to enhance the proposal. They embody the next:

• The regulation ought to state clearly that the Incapacity Card needs to be freed from cost and that these entitled to it ought to be capable of select whether or not they need to use it.
• An EU-wide, absolutely accessible web site needs to be arrange. It ought to have an easy-to-read model, be out there in all EU languages together with signal languages, and supply sensible data for each nation.
• The EU ought to coordinate EU-wide and nationwide awareness-raising campaigns in all EU languages to achieve out to most people, potential European Incapacity Card customers and repair suppliers.
• It ought to by no means be necessary to indicate the Incapacity Card as proof of incapacity for providers which can be granted below different EU laws. This could possibly be stigmatizing, and, furthermore, it may additionally exclude people who find themselves not Incapacity Card holders from help they might want.
• The European Parking Card needs to be accompanied by a separate database out there in all EU languages to supply details about current relevant parking guidelines, situations and areas as established at native, regional, or nationwide degree. The European Parking Card will need to have the phrases “European Parking Card” displayed in braille utilizing the Marburg code dimensions.
• The Member States ought to obtain acceptable funding to cowl the price of the executive procedures concerned and the bodily issuing of the cardboard, in addition to different associated prices.

Estimates of the variety of EU residents affected by a incapacity fluctuate. Based on the European Fee, there are 30 million Europeans with a acknowledged incapacity, and Eurostat knowledge present that round 27% of the EU inhabitants aged over 16 have some type of incapacity. That’s 101 million individuals, or one in 4 adults within the EU.

Figures additionally present that folks with disabilities are topic to varied types of inequality that don’t have an effect on their friends who should not have a incapacity. For instance, 28.8% of individuals with disabilities are susceptible to poverty and social exclusion, in contrast with 18.3% of the final inhabitants, with a big proportion of individuals with disabilities – 40.5% – unable to afford to go on vacation for per week annually.

Mr Vardakastanis stated that the EESC hoped that the proposal on the playing cards can be adopted by the Council earlier than the tip of this time period of workplace.

In regards to the EESC

The European Financial and Social Committee is an institutional consultative physique established by the 1957 Treaty of Rome. The Committee has 329 members from throughout Europe, who’re appointed by the Council of the European Union. It represents the varied financial and social elements of organized civil society. Its consultative function permits its members, and therefore the organizations they characterize, to take part within the EU decision-making course of.

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This peer reviewed publication pertaining to our Incapacity Data part was chosen for circulation by the editors of Disabled World as a result of its doubtless curiosity to our incapacity group readers. Although the content material might have been edited for fashion, readability, or size, the article “European Incapacity and Parking Playing cards” was initially written by European Financial and Social Committee, and submitted for publishing on 2023/12/14 (Edit Replace: 2023/12/17). Do you have to require additional data or clarification, European Financial and Social Committee might be contacted on the eesc.europa.eu/en web site. Disabled World makes no warranties or representations in connection therewith.

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Cite This Web page (APA): European Financial and Social Committee. (2023, December 14). European Incapacity and Parking Playing cards. Disabled World. Retrieved March 13, 2024 from www.disabled-world.com/incapacity/eu-disability-card.php

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