On Thursday 27 September ahead of the next inter-institutional meeting on access to products and services (taking place on 2 October) 20 NGOs (including the European Disability Forum, AGE Platform Europe and ANEC) launched an appeal in an open letter calling on the co-legislators to obtain an “ambitious” political agreement.
They would like an agreement before 3 December, the date corresponding to the European Day of Persons with Disabilities and which is also the date of the third anniversary of the European Commission proposal.
The appeal signatory organisations are concerned about the way the negotiations between the co-legislators are going and who they claim “are trying to erase essential elements” from the Commission proposal by excluding public procurement and micro-enterprises (see EUROPE 12023).
The NGOs state that this will mean that the vast majority (93%) of products and services will be excluded. The organisations also denounce the exclusion of emergency services, which they dispassionately claim will mean, “persons with disabilities will continue to die because they cannot reach or contact emergency responders”.
The NGOs point out that the exclusion of the built environment means that millions of products and services will still be out of reach for millions of Europeans. They conclude that this “will mean that the Act is meaningless”.
Please see the following link for the open letter: https://bit.ly/2OhLCEt. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)