Building up a Disablity-Inclusive Democracy: Innovative Parliamentary Policies and Structures to Advance Rights for Persons with Disabilities

Welcoming remarks

H.E. Evangelos C. Sekeris, Permanent Representative of Greece to the United Nations

Dragos Pîslaru, MEP, Chair Parliamentary Committee on Employment and Social Affairs

Panelists

Moderator: Markus Schefer, Member of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and CRPD rapporteur for the EU

Pat Clarke, EDA VP, representing the International Disability Alliance (IDA)

Rati Ionatamishvili, Member of the Parliament of Georgia

Katrin Langensiepen, MEP and Disability Rights Coordinator (DRC) in the European Parliament

Constantine Stephanidis, President of the National Accessibility Authority of Greece

Francisco Undurraga, Member of Parliament from Chile

Concept

The Permanent Mission of Greece, in cooperation with the European Parliament, will convene a side event on “Building up a Disability-Inclusive Democracy: Innovative parliamentary policies and structures to advance the rights for persons with disabilities.”

This side event will look at innovative approaches and common challenges for national and supra-national parliamentary structures in promoting  democracy that is disability-inclusive.

Policy makers on national and supra-national level will exchange views on how to improve law making and mainstream disability rights throughout all policy areas via effective parliamentary policies and structures in accordance with art.33.1 of the UN CRPD[1] and how to involve persons with disabilities in the process.

Legislators and representatives of persons with disabilities will further explore, share good practices on success factors and exchange knowledge on strategies and action plans that enable legislators to add real value.

[1] Article 33 – National implementation and monitoring, states »States Parties, in accordance with their system of organization, shall designate one or more focal points within government for matters relating to the implementation of the present Convention, and shall give due consideration to the establishment or designation of a coordination mechanism within government to facilitate related action in different sectors and at different levels«