Inclusion Europe: The new democratic deficit
People with intellectual disabilities must be able to cast their votes in the 2014 European Parliament elections
The European Parliament (EP) is always portrayed as the perfect example of legitimacy and representation in the European Union (EU). Directly elected, but still powerful enough to approve or reject legislation, it was meant to prove, once and for all, that the EU is democratic in every sense of the word.
However, with more than five million Europeans with intellectual disabilities at risk of not being able to choose the politicians representing them in the European Parliament, EU’s “democratic deficit” takes on a whole new meaning. Institutionalization, the removal of legal capacity, as well as the lack of accessible and understandable information on both the electoral process and the content of political programmes, are keeping persons with intellectual disabilities from exercising their right to vote, and thus further perpetuating a model of social exclusion.
