Mental Health Europe: International Day for Persons with Disabilities 2015 – Commission publishes the Accessibility Act just in time
What we want you to know about the International Day for Persons with Disabilities: one in four people in Europe will be faced with a mental health problem in their life time, many of these people will be considered to be persons with disabilities and will face many barriers to the full enjoyment of their rights. The United Nations intended that this Day would promote an understanding of disability issues and mobilise support for the dignity, rights and well-being of persons with disabilities. The theme of this year’s International Day is ‘Inclusion Matters: access and empowerment for people with disabilities’.
It has been an interesting year for the rights of persons with disabilities in the EU. Mental Health Europe (MHE) was proud to take part in the historic review of the EU by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in August. In keeping with the theme of this year’s International Day, the Commission has published a gift in the form of the European Accessibility Act, a key reform which was recommended by the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in its Concluding Observations to the EU.
MHE will be looking at the text closely over the next few weeks in order to contribute to the planned public consultation on this new important draft legislation. While there is always room for improvement, we wholeheartedly welcome this long awaited directive and would like to congratulate Commissioner Thyssen on the publication of what we believe is her first draft directive during her time as Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility. Persons with psychosocial disabilities face accessibility barriers in many areas of life including lack of access to basic services such as a bank account due to the denial of their legal capacity, inability to use products which are not designed with them in mind and difficulty in using services which deny them the right to be accompanied by a support person. We hope that this legislation will help to make Europe more inclusive and accessible for all including those with less visible disabilities such as psychosocial disabilities.
The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has requested information within 12 months of the review on the progress relating to the Accessibility Act; let’s hope that they will have major progress to report to the UN. We further encourage the EU to get passed the political blockage which has stalled the equally important draft horizontal Directive on Equal Treatment. The Accessibility Act and the Equal Treatment Directive are complimentary sets of legislation which together will contribute to a more fair, equal and inclusive Europe for persons with disabilities. We only get one day a year to truly spotlight the problems faced by persons with disabilities but we encourage the EU to maintain the progress made during 2015 and make next year and even better year for European persons with disabilities.
