Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-10-24-Speech-1-029-000"
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"en.20111024.13.1-029-000"2
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"Mr President, honourable Members, allow me first of all to congratulate you, and the rapporteur, Mr Kósa, on your report on mobility and inclusion of people with disabilities and the European Disability Strategy 2010-2020.
These deficiencies are obstacles preventing disabled people from participating in the economic, social and political life of our society. Given our ageing population, there is clearly a potential market for highly accessible goods and services.
Businesses often seem to ignore the economic potential of disabled people as consumers. Many Member States have sought to improve accessibility by drafting national guidelines and standards in order to meet the obligations laid down in the United Nations Convention. However, if we settle for providing purely national responses to the issue of the lack of accessibility, the 27 Member States will each end up with different legislation, regulations, standards and technical requirements, meaning that we will ultimately have a fragmented market that offers very little in the way of competition. We are convinced that a European market in accessible goods and services would hold far greater appeal for businesses.
The adoption of a European legislative act on accessibility should aim to encourage economies of scale for accessible goods and services, to fill the gaps in the market, and to increase competition. The European Commission plans to present a proposal for a European legislative act on accessibility in autumn 2012. The many issues relating to this initiative and to its content, scope and legal form are currently being examined. The preparation process has, in fact, begun and will be supported by a substantial impact assessment.
We would like to receive contributions from everyone concerned but, naturally, we would like to obtain the opinions of disabled people and the organisations that represent them as a priority. It goes without saying that we are also very interested in the opinions of businesses, service providers and public authorities in the Member States.
We also hope that you will see fit to participate in this process, and we invite you to give us your thoughts on this issue so that these legislative acts may be drafted properly.
In this report, the European Parliament is once again demonstrating its long-standing commitment to ensuring that equality and inclusion become a reality for the 80 million or so disabled people living in Europe.
Disability-related issues have entered the legal and legislative domain. On 22 January, for the first time in its history, the European Union became a signatory to an international human rights treaty: the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which has entered into force in the European Union. That important step for the rights of disabled people may well have been taken, but it was the European Parliament’s unfailing support throughout the complex procedure that also led to the conclusion of that Convention. Your April 2009 legislative resolution sent a strong political message in this regard and helped pave the way for a unanimous agreement among the Member States in the Council. The Commission is committed to making the rights enshrined in the Convention a reality, in cooperation with the Council and Parliament.
As regards the European Disability Strategy, I am anxious to reassure you that the emphasis placed today on an approach based on human rights and on citizen-focused disability policies is far from being a simple semantic change. It is based on very practical measures, which are also explained in detail in the European Disability Strategy.
The overall aim of this strategy is to enable disabled people to exercise all of their rights and to participate fully in all aspects of social and economic life, as individuals, consumers, students, workers and political actors.
Our strategy focuses, first and foremost, on removing obstacles. It provides the means to implement the United Nations Convention at EU level through the adoption of an ambitious programme of action. Although aspects of everyday life, such as education, health care and employment, are chiefly the responsibility of the Member States, we are convinced that EU-wide action is needed to support and complement the efforts made at national level.
We are going to use the Europe 2020 strategy and its instruments to encourage the full economic and social participation of disabled people. Through this integration-based approach, we will ensure that disabled people are not excluded from any action whatsoever. Rest assured that we will be monitoring very closely the measures taken by the Member States to improve the employment situation of these people. We will learn about these measures via the reports on the implementation of the Europe 2020 strategy, submitted as part of the annual national reform programmes; the issue of disabled persons is included in these reform programmes and in the reports that the Member States will have to provide to the Commission.
I am pleased to announce that the Commission will be making our recovery from the crisis the dominant theme of the conference held to mark the European Day of People with Disabilities. The conference will focus, in particular, on the contribution of the flagship initiatives under the Europe 2020 strategy and on funding to promote inclusive growth as guaranteed by the Union.
As regards the European legislative act on accessibility, in June, the Council declared itself broadly in favour of the European Disability Strategy and called on the Commission to review the framework currently in place to guarantee accessibility. This issue is at the heart of the strategy, and the adoption of a European legislative act on accessibility is one of the agreed priority actions in this area. Accessibility means enabling any person with disabilities to enjoy the same access as everyone else, whether it be access to his or her physical environment, to transport, to information or to communication. Accessibility is an essential precondition for enabling such persons to exercise their right as recognised by the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the United Nations Convention. The studies and complaints received from the public indicate that access to goods and services is still insufficient on the European market. What is more, accessible goods and services are often expensive; this situation is clearly due to the fact that it is a limited market in which there is still little competition."@en1
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