Lumos endorses stance of the European Expert Group
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Lumos endorses stance of the European Expert Group
11 May 2012
Lumos has long been advocating intensively at the European Level, calling for the EU to encourage countries to use available Structural and Cohesion funding for reforming systems of social care and bringing an end to the systematic institutionalisation of children. We host the secretariat and are a founder member of the European Expert Group on Deinstitutionalisation (EEG) - a renowned group of European NGOs active in this area. Through this group we have raised awareness of the potential role that the European Commission can play to provide and fund effective solutions to institutionalisation. This work has been successful with recent European Commission policy documents and legislative proposals containing strong commitments to the funding of the deinstitutionalisation programmes.
On 24 April 2012 the Council of the European Union agreed a compromise text on the new EU Cohesion Policy 2014-2020, which has removed two key conditionalities, which would oblige member states to develop measures and programmes to fund the transition from institutions to community-based care and ensure the effective implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Lumos has joined other organisations in endorsing the common position of the European Expert Group, which calls upon the Council of the EU and the European Parliament to reinstate these two conditionalities. They have the potential to drive forward the successful transition from institutional to community-based care and facilitate the social inclusion of children, persons with disabilities and mental health problems and older persons.
In its statemement the EEG highlights the past and current use of European funding to implement deinstitutuionalisation processes successfully. Furthermore, the conditionality regarding the existence of a mechanism for the implementation of the UN Convention would ensure that all investments in care services promote the fundamental rights and social inclusion of children and adults with disabilities.
The EEG say, "The social inclusion objectives of Europe 2020, which include eradicating child poverty, promoting the active inclusion of the most vulnerable groups, providing decent housing for everyone and overcoming all forms of discrimination, cannot be achieved if the Member States fail to strategically address the situation of over 1,2 million Europeans who live in long-stay residential institutions, segregated from the rest of society."
For more information, read the full statement of the European Expert group.
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