Mainstreaming horizontal principle Prevention of
discrimination based on disability and accessibility
.............................................................................................................................................................................................................
Simona Giarratano, EDF Social Policy Officer,
ESIF Structured Dialogue 3rd Meeting, Brussels, 17 November 2015
EUROPEAN
DISABILITY FORUM
........................................................................................................................................................................................
• Represents 80 million persons with disabilities in Europe
• Organisation of persons with disabilities
• Umbrella organisation with national platforms and European
federations
• National Council of Disability Organisations
• Represents the diversity of persons with disabilities, including
persons with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities
• Promotes the human rights of persons with disabilities at
European Union & international level
THE EUROPEAN DISABILITY FORUM
........................................................................................................................................................................................
• Mission → Guarantees Fundamental Rights
through an active participation of
persons with disabilities
• Values → Human rights
Equal opportunities
Non-discrimination
Gender equality
• Vision →
A society that integrates persons with
disabilities is a better society
THE EUROPEAN DISABILITY FORUM
........................................................................................................................................................................................
• We make our voices heard at the level of the EU institutions
• We discuss with NGOs, industry and social partners
• We deliver the expertise of persons with disabilities to the EU
decision makers
• On policy areas such as transport, ICT, social protection,
employment, education, justice, fundamental rights and nondiscrimination
Added Value of ESIFs
• European funding can make a difference in
European countries for people with disabilities in
improving accessibility, fighting poverty and social
exclusion and increasing education and
employment opportunities among, other things.
• New strong rules are in place now and EDF and its
members are called to actively engage and fight for
a correct implementation and monitoring of these
rules in practice both at national and European
level.
EDF & its members’ engagement
• Have your organization been involved in
developing operational programmes, selection
criteria, trainings, monitoring committees?
• What recent developments and actions happened
in your countries about the new programming
period of the Funds?
• Would you benefit from training and peer learning
opportunities among EDF members?
• What key actions the EDF campaign should include
and how can the secretariat support you in your
countries?
EU
RATIFICATION OF UN CRPD
........................................................................................................................................................................................
• European Union ratified UN CRPD in 2010
• first time in history EU is party to an international human
rights treaty
• EU is bound to implement the CRPD together with its
Member States (28 have signed and 25 have ratified)
• in many areas of shared competences such as transport,
justice, security, consumer protection, non
discrimination, public health matters, etc.
European Level 1/2
Deinstitutionalisation
• During the EU review process by the UN CRPD
committee, a lot of attention has been paid to the use of
structural funds and the implementation of article 19 and
the right to living independently in the community. Both
positive and negative obligations were highlighted for the
EU: on one hand, the use of the funds for developing
community based services of high quality, accessible and
affordable; on the other hand, to prohibit use of the funds
for institutional segregating settings. EDF is very active in
the European Expert Group on deinstitutionalization and
other actors are collecting data and advocating for the
implementation of the funds at this regard.
European Level 1/2
• Partnership principle and conditionality
• EDF is continuously monitoring the implementation
of the partnership principle and the ex-ante
conditionalities within the European Structured
Dialogue group of experts and of the Social
Platform task force on the Funds. To fulfill its role to
inform the European Commission of irregularity,
EDF members can alert the secretariat every time
a problem arises in their country
National Level
• The most important steps in the use of the Funds in
the next years are now happening at national level.
While some progress is made in involving
organization of persons with disabilities in the
monitoring of the funds, still the countries do not
equip them with the necessary technical capacity to
participate meaningfully in the process.
• Too many doubts still exist on compliance with the
ex-ante conditionalities. Managing authorities are
not fully aware of their obligations under the new
rules especially in relation to the UN CRPD.
PRECONDITIONS
• Capacity building of the representative
organisations of persons with disabilities
• The representative organisations of persons with
disabilities have to be consulted and involved
throughout the preparation and implementation of
programmes
• the representative organisations of persons
with disabilities of all member states are
included as partners mentioned in article 6 of
Reg 1304/2013 & should receive appropriate
amount of ESF for capacity building
PRECONDITIONS
Participation of the disability movement in the
whole process
• DPOs shall participate as full members with voting
rights in the MCs of all OPs
• During the whole process of the implementation of the
OPs, DPOs could operate as helpdesks in order to
support the Managing Authorities and the potential
beneficiaries to include non-discrimination based on
disability principle and accessibility criterion in all TOs,
axes, priorities and actions which are to be implemented.
• EU Funds have to support the operation of the helpdesk
through the whole programming period 2014-2020.
Follow up throughout the whole OPs’ lifecycle
– Respect of the horizontal principle of non-discrimination
and accessibility for pwd to be included in the selection
criteria
– The control of the implementation of those principles has
to be ensured through all documents concerning the
whole programmes’ lifecycle (call for proposals,
decisions, final report of completion of the project etc).
– with the participation of the disability organizations to
that process.
– The Managing Authorities’ annual progress reports of to
include references to the respect of these criteria.
– Compliance with ex-ante conditionalities has to be
checked by the European Commission and reported.
Good Practices
• There is a limited number of good examples
available of communication between DPOs and
managing authorities (e.g. Belgium, Slovakia, …),
about development of deinstitutionalization strategy
in some countries (Latvia, Romania, …) and
training of managing authorities and DPOs by
organization of persons with disabilities (e.g.
Greece).
Good Practice: NCDP, Greece
• It is noticed that in most cases Managing
Authorities are not familiar with the specialization
and incorporation of accessibility to persons with
disabilities In that case specialized tools can be
developed to support them.
• The Greek National Confederation of Disabled
Persons (NCDP), being strongly involved in the
mainstreaming of the horizontal principles
concerning disability and accessibility for persons
with disabilities even from the last programming
period 2007-2013, has developed a precious knowhow and methodology.
GOOD Practice: NCDP, Greece
• NCDP had technical meetings with MAs to know
their specific needs on the implementation and
mainstreaming of horizontal principles and ex-ante
conditionalities as well as to propose the inclusion
of targeted actions for pwd in the OPs
• NCDP will develop toolkit asked by MAs.
• NCDP organised training of all their members to
contribute to MCs
• NCDP is also planning to develop a relevant
Manual (in GR & EN) on how to engage in
monitoring and implementation of ESIFs
EDF CAMPAIGN 1/2
Existing Actions
• Continuous engagement within the EEG group on
transition from institutional to community based
care.
• Continuous engagement within the Social Platform
task force on ESIFs
• Continuous engagement in the European
Structured Dialogue group of experts with the
European Commission
• Support to members actions in their countries and
transmission of related information to the European
Commission
EDF CAMPAIGN 2/2
New actions
• Call for more members for the EDF Expert email
group on ESIFs
• Observatory on the use of the Funds
• Meetings with Commissioner Creţu and its services
• Training and peer learning opportunities among
EDF members
• Explore synergies and collaboration with other
partners active in this area
RESOURCES
........................................................................................................................................................................................
• EDF
Alternative
report:
http://www.edffeph.org/Page_Generale.asp?DocID=13854&thebloc=30
214
• EU report and the UN Committee List of Issues:
http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal
/SessionDetails1.aspx?SessionID=982&Lang=en
• Library with EDF position papers on www.edf-feph.org
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!
QUESTIONS and COMMENTS ?
Please feel free to contact me at
[email protected]