Brussels, 28/01/2003 (Agence Europe) - The European Disability Forum has welcomed the commitment of the informal Social Council of the EU in Napflion to take concrete measures during the European Year of People with Disabilities 2003 for getting rid of the obstacles and discrimination that the disabled have to face. Forum President Yannis Vardakastanis recalled that "only through the adoption of a specific disability directive, based on Article 13 of the Amsterdam Treaty, that discrimination can be efficiently combated."
After the launch of the European Year on 26 January in Athens by Commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou, the companies Accor, Adecco, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Manpower, MacDonalds, Microsoft, Schindler, Sony, Volkswagen, as well as the International Association of Public Transport (UIPT) and the EDF launched a "Corporate Partnership Programme" in an effort to bring real change this year to the 37 million disabled people living in the EU. Amongst the activities planned will be a public transport accessibility report to be launched at the UIPT's 55th world congress on 4-9 May in Madrid. This has been jointly put together by the UIPT and the Transport Ministers Conference and will put forward concrete examples and recommendations for exchanging good practices in this domain.