Public Consultation on the Europe 2020 Strategy
I. Taking stock: The EU 2020 Strategy over 2010-2014
a. Content and implementation
CERMI have welcomed the EU 2020 Strategy, which pledges to increase the average EU employment rate to 75%, reduce the number of people in or at risk of poverty and social exclusion in the EU by at least 20 million and to lower the school dropout rate under 10%. This represented a considerable commitment also vis-à-vis persons with disabilities, for which action has been deployed and needs to be sustained.
According to the EU Disability Strategy 2010-2020, launched in tandem with the EU 2020 Strategy, one in six people in the European Union (EU) has a disability that ranges from mild to severe, making around 80 million who are often prevented from taking part fully in society and the economy because of environmental and attitudinal barriers. For persons with disabilities, the rate of poverty is 70% higher than the average partly due to limited access to employment. Over a third of people aged over 75 have disabilities that restrict them to some extent, and over 20% are considerably restricted. These numbers are likely to grow due to an aging population and ever stricter national budgets.
The available statistics infer the impact that the EU Strategy could have on this target group. Factoring in its overall objectives as well as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), the EU Disability Strategy already works around eight main areas where action is required: accessibility, participation, equality, employment, education and training, social protection, health, and external action.
In fact, the UN Convention, which became a legally binding instrument for the European Union on 22 January 2011, also impacted the way in which disability policy, as part of the EU 2020 Strategy, needed to be devised. The Convention includes substantive provisions relating to accessibility (Article 9), education (Article 24) and employment (Article 27), all areas of crucial importance for the EU Strategy. While accessibility is a cross-cutting principle of the Convention and is relevant to all areas of implementation, education obligations embrace, amongst others, vocational training and lifelong learning opportunities with a view to improving the labour market. The Convention also calls to promote employment opportunities and career advancement for persons with disabilities in a labour market that is open, inclusive and accessible.
Since the Convention States Parties are bound to take into account the protection and promotion of the human rights of persons with disabilities in all policies and programmes, it is thus justified that the UN Convention explicitly serves as a frame of reference for both targeted disability policy and disability mainstreaming across the various fields of action under the EU 2020 Strategy.
The line of departure
The following table indicates the headline targets of the Europe 2020 Strategy as well as relevant socio-economic data that illustrates how far persons with disabilities in Spain were originally positioned from the EU 2020 Strategy objectives in 2010.
Europe 2020 headline target / Spain 2012 NRP target / Spain overall2012[i] / Persons with disabilities[ii]
Employment rate (%) / 75 / 74 / 56.5
M: 61.3
F: 51.7 / 27.7
M: 31.4
F: 23.3
Activity rate (%) / - / - / 60.8
M: 67.2
F: 53.4 / 36.2
M: 40.4
F: 31.0
Unemployment rate (%) / - / - / 24.63
M: 24.5
F: 24.7 / 23.3 (2010)
Estimate for 2011: 40%[iii]
M: 22.3
F: 24.9
Temporary employment rate (%) / - / - / 23.66
M: 22.3
F: 25.4 / 21.1
M: 19.2
F: -
School dropout rate (%) / 10 / 15 / 28.4 / 53.8 (2008)
M: 55.5%
F: 51.3%
Third level education (%)[iv] / 40 / 44 / 40.6 / 19.3 (2008)
M: 15.5
F: 24.5
Combined indicators Poverty/social exclusion[v] / 20 million
(2011 rate: 23.4%) / 1.4-1.5 million / 12.371 million
(2011 rate: 27%) / -
At risk of poverty (60% median income) / - / - / 2011 rate: 21.8%
9.986 million
(2011) / 2008 rate: 30.5%
M: 28.6
F: 31.75
1.060 million (2008)
In addition, a study conducted on behalf of both ONCE Foundation and Bosch i Gimpera Foundation by Professors Jorge Calero Martínez and Álvaro Choi de Mendizábal, from the University of Barcelona[1], disclosed in 2012 some valuable information on the potential contribution of persons with disabilities to the achievement of the EU 2020 Strategy objectives.
The study aimed at: 1) quantifying the current situation of the population with disabilities in all EU countries with regard to the EU 2020 Strategy objectives, and 2) estimating how the effects of an improvement of their relative position could allow for better results of those EU 2020 Strategy objectives. The data was based on the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) available in 2009.
The potential contribution of persons with disabilities to the achievement of the EU 2020 objectives was analised across a number of areas. Some of the results are simplified below:
Objective 1: Increase the employment rate of the 20-64 year-olds from the current 69% to 75%
The biggest gaps between the employment rate of persons with disabilities and those without disabilities are found in Romania, Greece, Bulgaria and Lithuania, and the lowest are found in Slovenia and Luxembourg.
The potential improvements that can be achieved through increases in the employment rate of persons with disabilities are considerable, taking into account their very unfavorable position in this field. In this way, a one percentage increase in their employment rate can lead to an improvement of 0,11 points in the employment aggregate rate of the EU.
Objective 2: Narrow the gap between the employment rates of high and low-skilled workers aged 20-64 in the EU-27
In general terms, a wide heterogeneity was observed among countries in 2009. The biggest gaps between high and low skilled positions held by people with disabilities were found in Ireland, Spain, Malta, Latvia and Lithuania; the smallest gaps were seen in Luxembourg, Sweden, Greece and France.
Objective 3: Reduce the long-term unemployment rate of the population aged 20- 64 in the EU-27
A great disparity among the different EU countries was observed. The countries with lowest long-term unemployment rates in 2009 were Cyprus, Denmark and Holland; the countries with the highest were Bulgaria and Ireland. People with disabilities suffered the worst situation in countries such as Greece and Germany, where the rate of long-term unemployment for persons with disabilities was above 26%.
One of the main conclusions is that a three point reduction in the long-term unemployment rate of persons with disabilities would allow the EU go below the 5% threshold for the indicator considered under this objective.
Objective 4: Reduce the early school drop-out rate below 10%
The headline target for the year 2020 refers to reducing the early school drop-out rate to below 10%. In 2009, seven EU Member States had already complied with that objective. Nevertheless, countries like Malta, Spain or Portugal were still far from reaching that target, with early drop-out school rates higher than 25%.
A potential reduction of one percentage point in the rate concerning people with disabilities would imply a reduction of 0,06 points in the aggregate rate.
Objective 5: Increase the share of the population aged 30-34 having completed tertiary or equivalent education to at least 40% in 2020
The population with disabilities shows an unfavorable situation compared to people without disabilities: While the former presents a completion rate of higher education of around 27,2%, the latter already meets the objective fixed by the Europe 2020 Strategy (40%). Therefore an improvement in the situation of people with disabilities under this objective is essential for the achievement of the objective at an aggregate level.
Objective 6: increase the percentage of the aged 25-64 participating in formal training activities
People with disabilities face varied situations depending on their country of origin. Nevertheless they share the common feature, except for Sweden, of being placed below the national average in their share of participation in formal training activities. People with disabilities in Finland participate often in regular training activities (5,8%) while on the opposite side, 9 countries did not reach the 1%. A one percentage point improvement in the participation rate in formal training activities of persons with disabilities would lead, on average, to an increase of 0,12 points in the aggregate participation rate.
Objective 7: Reduce the number of Europeans below the poverty line by 25%
Except for Hungary, persons with disabilities are at a greater risk of poverty than people without disabilities in all the EU Member States. The countries in which persons with disabilities are confronted with a more favorable situation are Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia. Persons with disabilities living in Cyprus and Latvia are the people at a greater risk of poverty.
On average a reduction of one point in the poverty rate for persons with disabilities would lead to a reduction in the poverty rate of the EU of 0,14 percentage points.
What conclusions can be extracted from the study?
· Out of the objectives for which a concrete target has been set for 2020, the EU as a whole is especially far from the employment rate target. The situation is relatively more positive for the education targets.
· The situation for persons with disabilities depends to a large extent to the EU country in which they live, even if all the indicators, for almost all countries involved in the study, demonstrate disadvantages in relation to people without disabilities.
· This situation of considerable disadvantage turns persons with disabilities into a key target group for specific policies aiming at reaching the EU 2020 Strategy objectives.
· The results also show that investing in improving the situation of persons with disabilities would contribute to the achievement of the EU 2020 Strategy objectives: even if the impact associated with that improvement on the aggregated level of the different objectives is not especially high in absolute terms - given the reduced number of people with disabilities -, the impact is indeed relevant in relative terms. This impact depends on the proportion of people with disabilities in the country, on the disability definition that has been used and on the relative position of persons with disabilities with regard to non-disabled people.
· The spending in education and programmes for job creation should be considered an investment when it comes to persons with disabilities. The savings in public benefit payments should be welcomed in addition to the conventional benefits associated with education and the increasing economic activity.
· The category of ‘persons with disabilities’ embraces a heterogeneous group of people. The effectiveness of these policies should be based on the recognition of this diversity and the creation of tailored programmes for the different sub-groups within it. Data relating to persons with disabilities in official surveys undertaken such as the Spanish INE and EUROSTAT becomes of crucial relevance.
Impact of the crisis on persons with disabilities
The departure line of the EU Strategy with regard to persons with disabilities was further aggravated by the impact of the financial and economic crisis that unfolded following the launch of the EU 2020 Strategy.
Although, under the umbrella of the Strategy, the crisis was addressed, some response mechanisms suffered delays, and have not proved to be sufficient, at least in the social field. The peak of the crisis seems to have faded, but its consequences are still to be dealt with through better targeted policy in the years to come.
A study on Assessing the impact of European governments’ austerity plans on the rights of persons with disabilities, conducted by the European Consortium of Foundations on Human Rights and Disability in October 2012, gathers crisis-specific data:
· With the exception of some few Member States, the participation of persons with disabilities in the labour market has decreased in the EU since the onset of the economic crisis. In addition, persons with disabilities are more likely to receive temporary contracts and lower wages leading to financial insecurity. An analysis of data from the EU-SILC shows that, between 2008 and 2009, employment rates significantly decreased for people with severe limitations of all ages, apart from those in the 55-64 age range who were already at a very low level.
· An existing downward trend in the employment rate of young people (15-24) was exacerbated between 2007 and 2009. Despite a small increase in rates in 2010, rates were still well below pre-crisis levels.
· More than 1 out of 5 persons with disabilities (21.1%) are at risk of poverty in the EU compared to people without disabilities (14.9%). The poverty risk-rates sharply increased between 2008 and 2010 in several of the EU countries, namely Ireland (+26.16%), Denmark (+21.27%), Lithuania (+21.01%), Spain (+11.35%), Cyprus (+8.11%), Hungary (+6.03%) and Malta (+5.10%). People with disabilities have more than a 25% chance of being at risk of poverty in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and the UK.
· Many of the measures identified by the study have the potential to seriously inhibit progress towards the EU2020 objectives relating to employment, education, poverty and social exclusion. The combined impact of deteriorating labour market conditions and funding pressures on employment services for people with disabilities are putting at risk the headline target of 75% of the 20 to 64-year-olds in employment by 2020.
· Restrictions on resources for inclusive education is likely to result in higher school dropout rates on the part of pupils with disabilities and diminish the proportion of students going on to third level education. In many countries, the sharp increase between 2008 and 2010 of people at risk of poverty, particularly people with disabilities, presents a significant challenge to attaining the EU2020 target of reducing this risk by 20 million people.
The overall landscape reveals that strategies for persons with disabilities need to be refined and re-addressed to accelerate progression towards the overarching EU objectives. Hopefully, the next strategy in place will be devised to respond to these specific challenges.