European Association of Service Providers for Persons with Disabilities: What is the EU doing to implement the UN CRPD? The service providers’ perspective
The European Association of Service Providers for Persons with Disabilities (EASPD) has sent a report to the United Nations (UN) compiling the views of service providers for persons with disabilities on the progress made towards ensuring compliance with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) by the European Union (EU). The report stresses the European Disability Strategy’s (EDS) lack of recognition of the role played by support services, whilst calling on the EU to adopt a “social investment approach”, overhauling its perception of services as a “cost”.
The main objective of EASPD’s report is to assess the role the EU has taken in regard to its obligations arising from the conclusion of the UN CRPD in December 2010, focusing on articles that are specifically relevant for the support services sector. The report first stresses the recent, important shift experienced by the sector throughout Europe, which witnessed a refocusing towards the implementation of person-centred and individualised services in line with the UN Convention. The report nonetheless indicates there is still much to be achieved if the sector is to fully accomplish this culture change. Responding to this need represents the main challenge for the service provision of tomorrow. The report highlights how the latest austerity measures and budgetary cuts to public expenditure have impacted the quality of service provision in most European countries, resulting in a tendency towards re-institutionalisation, lack of access to the labour market and to mainstream education.
Social support services should be considered as an instrument for the UN CRPD’s implementation. The EDS, currently the EU’s main tool for implementation of the Convention at European level, fails to convey this message, as it neglects to structurally integrate the role of individualised support services. Consequently, EU policy lacks a service provision perspective. There is insufficient reference within the EDS to persons with intellectual and mental disabilities in particular, despite complex and high support needs associated with their service requirements. This is a missed opportunity and contributes to the detriment of these persons. EASPD recommends the EU to structurally involve persons with all types of disabilities and their support services in policy development. The institutions must fully integrate the Strategy into the European Semester, which is, at present, the main EU tool influencing national social policies.
