Organisations of persons with disabilities (DPOs) have also the opportunity to participate in the reporting process. At the same time that state parties’ prepare their report to the UN Committee, DPOs can also prepare an alternative report presenting the situation of persons with disabilities and covering gaps of the state parties’ report.
EDF Alternative Report comes to give the view of 80 million Europeans with disabilities on the enjoyment of their political, civil, economic, social and cultural rights. The report is the result of a collective work with EDF’s members, civil society organisations and other stakeholders. Giving a clear view on the situation of persons with disabilities all over Europe would not have been possible without their contribution and expertise. The purpose of EDF’s Alternative Report is to inform the UN Committee about how the UN CRPD has been implemented by the European Union and its institutions, agencies and bodies. The report based its analysis on the gaps in the EU Report on the Implementation of the UN CRPD that the EU submitted to the UN Committee on 5 June 2014 and seeks to complement it where relevant with information received by EDF members and other stakeholders.
EDF AND MEMBERS’ INVOLVEMENT IN THE EU REVIEW
The EU review process in Geneva was a core part of EDFs advocacy work, together with all of our members, throughout 2015. It involved a range of partners, a high level of coordination within EDF, and a range of publications and events.
In addition to the EDF report, the Committee received a range of civil society alternative reports, including from EDF members, who have expertise and mandates to work on specific topics. In order to make the EU review smoother, for the committee to understand main issues and priorities EDF coordinated closely with all our members’ organisations which presented alternative reports.
EDF has also prepared a submission for the List of Issues which was adopted by the EDF Executive Committee. This was sent along with EDF alternative report to the CRPD Committee.
The Committee issued its list of issues to the EU and EDF, then analyzed this, consulted with our members, including during our May General Assembly, developed an EDF response to the List of Issues. This was submitted to the CRPD committee, and also presented in a second briefing for the committee which took place on August 27th in Geneva.
The Constructive dialogue between UN Committee and the EU took place on August 27th and 28th to which EDF also took part together with members. EDF also took this opportunity to meet with the Commission services, led by Mr. Michel Servoz, to directly discuss all of EDFs concerns, which were presented to the Committee during the briefing.
EDF secretariat organized a series of coordination meeting with its European members to discuss the ways we will work together to promote the recommendations of our alternative report during the reporting / review process. All of the Committee briefings were done jointly with our members who also submitted alternative reports, in collaboration with the International Disability Alliance.
