The positions of the disability movement for the National Action Plan for the Rights of the Disabled

A letter was sent by the ESA, with its proposals on the "Action Plan for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities", to the Minister of State G. Gerapetritis responsible for its drafting. The proposals and comments were also submitted to the public consultation on the Action Plan. The preparation and consultation of the "Action Plan on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities" is undoubtedly a development of historical importance, as for the first time a Greek Government is placed in a coherent way on the rights of people with disabilities in the present and in the future.

For the first time in 1996, the E.S.A.M.A. and the wheelchair movement as a whole, they highlighted for the first time in the public debate and submitted as a request to the Greek Parliament and the Greek Government, the need to develop and implement a holistic, organized and coordinated national strategy of public policies to defend and safeguard by the Greek State the human and constitutionally guaranteed rights of people with disabilities, chronic diseases and their families. Since then, there has been a pandemic demand from the country's wheelchair movement, the implementation of such a strategy, by all the governments that followed. On July 16, 2019, the E.S.A.M.A. drafted and submitted to the Prime Minister of the country, the Council of Ministers and the Heads of political parties, the "National Programme for the Implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities", which was updated following the publication on 29 October 2019 of the Final Remarks and Recommendations of the United Nations Commission on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The above-mentioned initiative of the E.S.A.M.A. led to the meeting held at Maximos Palace on 21 August 2019, during which Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis committed himself to the President of the E.S.A.M.A. on the priority that the Government will give to the strategy to be followed for the effective and effective response to the problems of people with disabilities. With this National Action Plan, the E.S.A.M.A.'s request begins to take shape.