Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-04-04-Speech-3-084"
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"en.20010404.3.3-084"2
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".
The European Commission’s proposal is based on the ruling class’s familiar tack of providing so-called equal opportunities and free access to people with disabilities, as can be seen from the title of the report in question, “Towards a barrier-free Europe for people with disabilities”. The effort to mask the class aspects of the problem is obvious. How can a child with disabilities from a poor lower-class family and a child from a rich family have equal opportunities? It is also quite deliberate, because any positive measures proposed in the report (design standards, new services etc.) will basically be enjoyed by disabled people from the wealthy classes. Finally, what is interesting is that the requirements of people with disabilities have been commercialised in all areas, e.g. in education, on the market for technical aids, in securing cheap labour etc. And the odd positive measure, such as access to transport, the recognition of national cards to promote freedom of movement in the Member States of the ΕU or the facility to transfer disability allowances from one state to another, does nothing to change this.
People with disabilities are the first and the most tragic victims of the policy to cut social spending on health and welfare and abolish social security systems. Typically, not one EU text mentions the need for social spending in order to address the problems of people with disabilities and, here too, we must rely on non-governmental organisations, volunteers and the family to deal with the acute social problems of people with disabilities. They may go on ad infinitum about new services, technical aids etc., but nowhere does it state that these will be provided free of charge or that the cost of purchasing them will be subsidised. The only good thing is that employers are subsidised for taking on people with disabilities. And yet, despite the fact that employment subsidy programmes have been around for years, unemployment among the disabled is nearly 70%, according to periodic studies published by independent organisations.
As far as special education and training are concerned, apart from a few generally positive but non-binding proposals relating mainly to tertiary education, the text is based on the unscientific approach of placing pupils with disabilities in mainstream schools, ostensibly with a view to integrating them into society as a whole. The authors of the report must surely be aware of the fact that this experiment failed in Germany and France, where a series of special schools were closed at the beginning of the 1980s, only to open again at the end of the 1980s, in order to prevent a social outcry. How can deaf, blind or paraplegic children attend lessons in downtrodden state schools, play etc. when specialists say that even special books are needed for blind and deaf children? No one dared to apply these measures in England, because there was a huge reaction from universities, associations of the disabled etc. All the integration approach does is to cut social spending, shift the financial burden onto the family and provide the disabled with a second-rate education.
That is why the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece will not be voting in favour of the report."@en1
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