After a long and tormented gestation, the European Commission has published the proposal entitled Europe 2020, a strategy for an intelligent, sustainable and inclusive growth. The European Disability Forum denounces: only a small hint to the subject of disability is made in the communication; no facts, few words. The last two years have left behind them a distressing deterioration of the economic and social reality of Europe: millions of unemployed, a public and personal indebtedness that is difficult to settle, and huge cracks in the social cohesion system, but most of all a general loss of confidence in the European model and in the capacity of those who govern. Ending with disappointing results the decade of the Lisbon Strategy which even before the economic crisis began to show intrinsic and structural weakness, the European Commission found itself with the need to elaborate a development plan for the decade 2010-2020, a huge challenge for an agglomerate of States more preoccupied with safeguarding their own sovereignty and their own interests than getting involved in real terms to create an economic and political community worthy of the name. From a complex and difficult confrontation within the Commission and based on the results from a quick and superficial public consultation, the Commission has worked on elements to develop a new decade strategy called EU 2020 Strategy. It is not possible here to illustrate the proposal in a detailed and exhaustive manner, but it seems appropriate to briefly present here at least the purpose and most relevant objectives and a first evaluation of the document by the European Disability Forum. With this new strategy, the European Commission has determined to reach before 2020 five measurable objectives which will guide the exit process of the crisis at the European as well as the national levels. These objectives concern employment, research and innovation, climatic change and energy consumption, education and the fight against poverty. The objectives are represented in the three priorities of the EU 2020 Strategy: intelligent growth, that is to develop an economy based on knowledge and innovation; sustainable growth, that is to promote a more efficient economy based on resources; and inclusive growth, that is to promote an economy with a high level of employment that would stimulate social and territorial cohesion. In other words, the Commission proposes to reach the following objectives: 75% of the population aged 20-64 (today 69%) should be employed; 3% of the EU's GDP (today 1.9%) should be invested in R&D; the CO2 emissions will have to be reduced by 20% in respect to year 1990; the share of renewable sources of consumed energy should increase by 20%, while energetic consumption should diminish by 20% (finishing line 20/20/20); the share of early school leavers should be under 10% and at least 40% of the younger generation (in regards to the actual 31%) should have a degree or diploma; 20 million less people should be at risk of poverty. In order to meet the targets, the Commission proposes a Europe 2020 agenda consisting of a series of flagship initiatives. I) Innovation union - re-focussing R&D and innovation policy on major challenges, while closing the gap between science and market to turn inventions into products and services fostering the growth in employment. II) Youth on the move - enhancing the quality and international attractiveness of Europe's higher education system by promoting student and young professional mobility. III) A digital agenda for Europe - delivering sustainable economic and social benefits from a Digital Single Market based on ultra fast internet. IV) Resource-efficient Europe - supporting the shift towards a resource efficient and low-carbon economy. Europe should stick to its 2020 targets in terms of energy production, efficiency and consumption. V) An industrial policy for green growth – helping the EU's industrial base to be competitive in the post-crisis world, promoting entrepreneurship and developing new skills. VI) An agenda for new skills and jobs – creating the conditions for modernising labour markets, with a view to raising employment levels and ensuring the sustainability of our social models, while baby-boomers retire.
VII) European platform against poverty - ensuring economic, social and territorial cohesion by helping the poor and socially excluded and enabling them to play an active part in society. In particular, the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion (2010) being the starting point, the Commission is proposing to improve knowledge and guarantee the respect of the human rights of people who are victims of poverty and social exclusion, so that they can live in dignity and participate actively in social life. Implementing these initiatives is a shared priority, and action will be required by EU-level organisations and Member States. As an immediate priority, the Commission has determined the adoption of measures to define a credible exit strategy, the reform of the financial system, the funding of the budget towards long term growth and major coordination between Economic and Monetary Union. The European Council will assume full ownership of the strategy which will be the central element. The European Commission will monitor progress and it will also facilitate political communications and present the proposals necessary to direct interventions and move ahead with the EU's flagship initiatives. Even the European Parliament is asked to play a determinant role in mobilizing the population and to serve as co-legislator for the main initiatives. After a long period of uncertainty and negotiations, on March 3rd the communication was published, and on March 4th the main objectives and priorities of the European Council were adopted. Will follow the development of guidelines, in particular for those of the European strategy for employment. The adoption by Heads of States and Governments of Member Countries of the whole plan is set for June 17, 2010. The European Disability Forum has given itself active time to have included in the 2020 Strategy a clear reference to the recognition of the human rights of persons with disabilities. This would be possible thanks to a pact on disability rights to be inserted within the priority objectives of the strategy. Once the operative structure of the Commission's proposal is specified, it seemed reasonable to propose including the pact in the above mentioned flagship initiatives which substantiate operatively the various strategy priorities. Without a doubt the EU 2020 Strategy faces considerable challenges of the contemporary society and its objectives are ambitious in sectors of employment, education and fight against poverty. In order to reach these objectives and to attain an inclusive growth, we have to make sure that the European Pact on Disability Rights be included in the context of the strategy systematically and strongly in the most appropriate flagship initiative. This way the pact will be an effective instrument to guarantee that in Europe is developing a truly open-minded society, receptive and inclusive even for disadvantaged persons, in particular persons with disabilities. With the European Pact on Disability Rights, the Forum intends to create a legal context for the promotion of the rights of persons with disabilities and to give an impulse to the coordination of policies relating to disability in the state members and European institutions. The Pact is based on legal tools existing at the international, European and national levels, and responds to the expectations of persons with disabilities about a systematic normative framework in regards to their basic rights and the improvement of life conditions. The request to include the Pact in the EU 2020 Strategy is motivated by the necessity to guarantee policies regarding disability in a long term direction that is clear and coherent and which will provide EU governments with a coordinated programming of the objective of inclusive growth in the disability sector, which has been so far the most aleatory social policy. The Pact, sustains the Forum, will finally make possible, within the framework of the new strategy, measures in the field of education, employment and social security of persons with disabilities, a category which has always experienced discrimination and marginalization, and is strongly affected by the economic crisis.
The EDF has gathered in 2007 over a million and three hundred thousand signatures to create a European Union in which human rights of persons with disabilities would be defended with an effective legislation that would fight against any form of discrimination and guarantee full social and civil inclusion of persons with disabilities. Moreover, every state member of the EU has signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and 13 members, among which Italy, have already ratified it. The European Council, in turn, has deliberated the adhesion of the EU to this treaty only on human rights. Such engagements must now be translated into concrete political actions.
It is now necessary to define clear and feasible objectives, which will be reached with a strict coordination between policies at the EU and state members' level as well as with the significant involvement of representative organizations of civil society in the adoption and implementation processes. In this sense, a condition for the fulfilment of a fruitful EU 2020 Strategy is to guarantee the direct involvement of persons with disabilities in the adoption process, in a way to produce significant impacts on their life in alignment with the principle "nothing about us without us". This can be achieved according to the Forum only if is accepted the proposal to introduce within the EU 2020 Strategy's flagship initiatives the European Pact on Disability Rights, in the policy framework linked to global growth. The Pact should include: 1) Integration of the needs of persons with disabilities in the framework of all policies and the global EU legislation; 2) Definition of clear and feasible objectives regarding education, employment, inclusion and social protection for persons with disabilities; 3) Monitoring and follow-up mechanisms of the objectives; 4) Guarantee of coordination among state members and EU institutions regarding disability policy; 5) Involvement of representative organizations of persons with disabilities in every decisional process. It is undoubtedly an ambitious project, but realistic, in a sense that it can become a systematic and relevant element of the strategy which will mark the success or the defeat of the development model of Europe for the next ten years.