On 26 February, the European Parliament endorsed amendments to the proposal for a Directive on the accessibility of public sector bodies’ website put forward by the European Commission in December 2012.
It is positive to see the European Council calling for “stepping up efforts to reach the Europe 2020 targets”. This supports the request of employment and social affairs ministers during their EPSCO meeting last week to “strengthen their efforts to reduce poverty”.
On 11 February, European Disability Forum (EDF) officially presented its manifesto for the upcoming European elections at the premises of the European Parliament in Brussels. The document features the main demands of the disability movement towards the newly elected European Parliament.
The European Commission questions Italy over the enforcement of rights of passengers with disabilities. According to the official communication from the European Commission, Italy failed to uphold the rights of passengers with disabilities in three areas: coach and bus transport, maritime and inland waterway transport and the compensation fund. The government of Italy has two months to reply to the Commission how they plan to overcome these challenges.
The first African Leaders Forum on Disability committed to take up the steps necessary to improve the access of people with disabilities to fundamental rights. The forum hosted by Joyce Banda, the President of Malawi, and Special Olympics on 10 February in Lilongwille, the capital of Malawi, established the African Leadership Alliance on Intellectual Disabilities with an aim to boost the rights of people with intellectual disabilities in African countries.
On 25 February, AGID project will host its final dissemination conference entitled ‘Ageing and intellectual disability’ in Vienna. The project which aimed to develop training about ageing of people with intellectual disabilities for frontline staff and healthcare professionals will now present the AGID training platform focusing on ‘inclusive support’.
Dozens of persons with intellectual disabilities in six European countries were trained to support their peers in daily life activities and decision-making.
The European Commission released a report about practices and rules which have been applied in the member states to tackle the discrimination and inequality. The document evaluates the efforts of the countries to apply two European anti-discrimination Directives: the Employment Equality Directive and the Race Equality Directive.
International Disability Alliance (IDA) chair Yannis Vardakastanis addressed United Nations (UN) Member States, UN agencies and civil society at the UN Headquarters in New York on 6 February 2014, calling for a post-2015 sustainable development agenda that is inclusive of persons with disabilities.
