People with intellectual disabilities face legal obstacles when it comes to voting in seven EU countries, effectively barring them from voting in June’s European Parliament elections, the head of the Inclusion Europe campaigning group told EuraActive in an interview.
Inclusion Europe campaigns for the rights of people with intellectual disabilities, who, according to the organisation’s own data, are estimated at around 20 million in Europe.
Intellectually disabled people need parental assistance to vote, but in Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Portugal and Slovenia only one person is allowed per polling station, which will deprive them of the right to vote in the European Parliament elections due to take place in early June.
“Some people are not able to make decisions for themselves, so a guardianship is assigned to them,” explained Milan Švelepa, director of Inclusion Europe, pointing out that these countries are violating the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which has been adopted by the 27 EU member states.
“In these seven countries, the case can be brought to court and a judge can decide whether the person has the right to vote,” Schwerepa explained.
“In 15 other countries, people with intellectual disabilities cannot run for office,” explained the director of Inclusion Europe. More specifically, such restrictions apply in Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland.
According to Eurostat, in 2022 there will be around 101 million people with disabilities of any kind in the EU, and a report by the European Economic and Social Committee said that around 800,000 were denied the right to vote in the last European elections.
“Intellectual disability is one category among many other types of disabilities, including sensory, physical and mental disabilities,” Schwerepa explained, noting that some disabilities can occur in combination, which usually makes the support provided by families more complex.
Intellectual disabilities affect the ability to acquire knowledge and skills, affect intellectual and educational processes, and cause challenges in certain social situations.
The lack of adequate support for people with disabilities translates into significant lack of access to employment, housing, health care, and many other important aspects of modern society, including the right to vote.
For example, physically disabled people face not only legal but also physical barriers to accessing polling stations, while intellectually disabled people may have difficulty accessing information.
Regarding the latter subject, institutions should produce “easy-to-read information, consisting essentially of a simplified version of instructions on how to vote, party manifestos, candidate pages, etc.,” explains the director of Inclusion Europe.
“In the run-up to the EU elections, the European Parliament has already created a new page with easy-to-read information,” he added.
People with intellectual disabilities have full voting rights in only six EU member states – Finland, France, Spain and Sweden, as well as the UK and Norway. “This means that EU countries have to do more to enable greater participation of people with disabilities in elections,” concluded the Inclusion Europe director.
[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]
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