Re: Policy references

> In Europe, different countries have different levels of requirements, and
> there is no EU-wide requirement yet?


The Amsterdam treaty contains a new Article (6a) and a Declaration
(22) on people with disabilities.

==== extract:

TREATY OF AMSTERDAM (Oct 97) AMENDING THE TREATY ON EUROPEAN UNION,
THE TREATIES ESTABLISHING THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES AND CERTAIN RELATED
ACTS.

The following Article shall be inserted: "Article 6a".

 Without prejudice to the other provisions of this Treaty and within
 the limits of the powers conferred by it upon the Community, the
 Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission and
 after consulting the European Parliament, may take appropriate action
 to combat discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin,
 religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation.'


Declaration 22 regarding persons with a disability.

 The Conference agrees that, in drawing up measures under Article 100a
 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, the institutions
 of the Community shall take account of the needs of persons with a
 disability.

====

Full text of the Amsterdam treaty in PDF is available at 
 http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/EuropAmst.pdf 


I also have received from the European Commission a document entitled:
 LEGAL AND ECONOMIC FACTORS
 IMPACTING REHABILITATION TECHNOLOGY AVAILABILITY
 Horizontal European Activities in Rehabilitation Technology
 (HEART TIDE study 309 - Aug 93)


I'll attach the Executive Summary and the list of countries reviewed.

==== extract

The following report examines the national legislation existing in
eleven European countries - eight European Community Member States and
three European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries - and
identifies the legislative measures which do, directly or indirectly,
affect the rehabilitation technology market.This report was completed
in August 1993 and thus does not take account of more recent
legislation.

 
The report does not set out to provide a comprehensive picture of all
existing legislation, regulations, guidelines or voluntary codes of
practice in each country. It does, however, focus on the principal
laws and regulations within certain areas of activity, such as working
life, where they exist and highlights the areas where there is no
statutory provision of technical aids. Neither does the report analyse
the effectiveness of the legislation in each country as this will be
the subject of the second report.

====

Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, The
Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, The United Kingdom 

For each, it goes over
 Introduction
 Legal and administrative framework
 Legislation related to rehabilitation technology
 Future trends
 References

 
I put the complete document (in doc and generated html) at:

 http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/heart.html 
 http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/heart.doc




Of course, UK has its DDA
 http://www.disabilitynet.co.uk/info/legislation/ddaguide/index.html


Other than that, more specific to France, I recently received some
information about a group of Telecom operators challenging the sharing
of the Universal Service cost with France Telecom. More development to 
follow.

Received on Wednesday, 10 June 1998 07:59:40 UTC