Verbatim report of proceedings

Monday, 12 December 2022 - Strasbourg

Towards equal rights for persons with disabilities (debate)

  Monica Semedo (Renew). – Madam President, one-and-a-half years ago, I suddenly became impaired. I have a rare disease, and today I only see 25%, even with glasses, which is sometimes disturbing.

But I know that many others have greater struggles. Many others are in a worse situation than me. They face discrimination in their everyday lives: half of the people with disabilities are unemployed; nearly 30% are at risk of poverty. They are excluded – we are excluded – from society. We have barriers, for example, in transportation or in education. 800 000 people with a disability could not vote in 2019 in the European elections because of barriers of accessibility. That cannot be. They have their right to vote. They have their voice to vote.

As one of the chairs of the European Parliament’s cross—party Disability Intergroup, I can assure you that we fight for equal chances and opportunities for everybody, which also means for people with disabilities. We fight so that everybody can contribute to society, because we can and we want to.