Government

 

Government policy in Germany is to treat all types of disability equally. It attempts to create as much equality of opportunity as possible for disabled people and to reduce disadvantages. It assumes that disabled persons are not passive recipients or objects of help and support. In fact they are responsible citizens and are the experts regarding their disability and how they can best use their abilities to ensure their social and economic integration into society.

Legal regulations, institutions, and services cannot be more than an opportunity and a chance for integration. The disabled person or the person threatened with disability must be motivated to take advantage of them. Advice and help regarding integration must be adapted to the person's level of motivation and must develop it, taking into consideration the rehabilitation measures which are possible in each case.

THE INTERNATIONAL FRAMEWORK

 

Questions regarding the rehabilitation and integration of disabled people must be discussed and solved nationally, but they are also the subject of a growing exchange of experience at the international level. Achieving equal opportunity for people with disabilities is becoming a central feature of decisions taken internationally. Ethical questions regarding treatment, particularly of people who are unable to grant permission on their own behalf, are being more frequently discussed.

Resolutions and directives of the European Council of Ministers and the United Nations have influenced German policy and legislation. The European Council of Ministers has played a pioneering role with its 1992 resolution regarding "A coherent policy for the disabled." This sets out a comprehensive concept and direction, relating the demands and developments in the different areas of life and politics to one another and drafting a script for a European policy for disabled persons. The "Framework Provisions for the Creation of Equality of Opportunity for the Disabled " which were passed by the General Assembly of the United Nations are also attracting increasing public attention.

The specifications of the European Council of Ministers and the United Nations influenced the resolutions passed by the executive institutions of the European Union. The European Parliament refers to the framework directives of the United Nations in its 1996 "Resolution on the Rights of the Disabled." The Council of Ministers and the government representatives in the Council refer to the resolution of the European Council of Ministers in their "Resolution on Equality of Opportunity for the Disabled," also of 1996. Both resolutions require that member states achieve equality of opportunity for disabled people and state strongly that any kind of negative discrimination against people with disabilities must be avoided or eliminated.

In order to further strengthen these goals, the European Council of Ministers included the following in the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1997:

* An employment chapter which also applies to the disabled;