Now the compromise needs to be endorsed by both institutions. In particular, the Parliament obtained €15 Billion for strengthening flagship programmes in order to protect citizens from the COVID-19 pandemic, providing new opportunities to next generations and preserving European values; One more billion Euros for increasing flexibility to address future needs and crises. Thanks to this compromise, the EU Parliament has ensured an additional year of financing the Erasmus + programme and also the increase of research funding.

This aspect is very important, as the EU is experiencing hard times in the last years such as the recent Brexit in 2017 which is supposed to be completed at the end of the current year, or the spreading of nationalist movements across the EU which are seriously challenging EU institutions and especially their functionings.

But it is also important as many young people with fewer opportunities, such as young people with disabilities, can become more vulnerable especially due to the pandemic situation.

If you would like to get more information about all the aspects contained in the new economic budget, please read the European Parliament’s press release on this topic.

The webinar was opened by our VIEWS staff member Loredana, who was a moderator of this event. She briefly presented the subject of webinar, the agenda and the guests of conference.

The first speaker was Marta Gutierrez Benet from the European Commission Directorate General for Education and Culture (DG EAC). As a person responsible for the Erasmus + programme in European Commission she explained general assumptions of this project. The Erasmus + program currently consists of three Key Actions, with KA1 being the most popular. Getting to the details, around 37,000 people with special needs took part in the KA1 in 2014-2018. Over 5000 disability projects have been financially supported since 2014. Also, around 22,000 inclusion projects have been created under all KA, which represents around 18% of the Erasmus + programme.

What about the future of the Erasmus programme for people with special needs? We received a short plan of what we can expect:
Enhanced visibility of inclusion and diversity measures
A more accessible programme for people with fewer opportunities and organisations in this field.
Inclusion and diversity at the heart of the future Erasmus
It is important that EC is constantly working on improving the program and thus expanding the group of its beneficiaries, while making their activities more accessible.

Monitoring organizations are also useful for improving Erasmus +. At the conference one of the representatives of such an organization was Dominique Montagnese, inclusive mobility expert from Support Center Inclusive Higher Education (SIHO). His speech focused on the obstacles encountered by participants in the Erasmus + programme. As we could hear, the most common problems appear in the communication field between a participant and an organization. Equally often, there is a lack of institutions dedicated to support people with special needs. He also mentioned the platform www.inclusivemobility.eu , which is a huge information database, containing analyzes of many countries in the field of the rights of persons with disabilities and advice on preparation for the Erasmus + project. Besides, on the platform are surveys conducted to improve the functioning of the programme; thus they gather opinions and suggestions for changes from: students with disabilities, Higher Education Institutions, Ministries for Education. There you might find also testimonials of students who already participated in Erasmus +.

We had the opportunity to listen to the testimonies of Klass and Virginia, i.e. two young beneficiaries of the Erasmus +. They also emphasized that more attention should be paid to communication between relevant institutions and participants. Otherwise, they emphasized the important role of social media in thier projects. It was on the internet that they could find many advices and people able to help them.

We are truly glad that the Erasmus + programme is constantly evolving because we consider ourselves part of it. The important issue is also providing it more inclusive for disabled people. The current huge challenge is the pandemic of COVID-19, but we hope that the people and organisations will be still able to profit of Erasmus + in safety environment.

The first issue that has been raised is access to the information. Very often, information to obtain the status of a disabled person is not tailored to the needs of those interested. The websites and information points should be standardized so that everyone, regardless of the type of disability, has equal access to them.

However, turning to disability assessment systems. Among all European countries we can distinguish as many as seven estimation systems. In addition, each of these systems can differ in each of the individual countries. This leads to the fact that European Union citizens can be recognized by some countries as disabled persons and by others not. Ultimately, due to different assessment systems, the ID card of a disabled person is only valid in the home country. For this reason, European countries should develop a uniform system in order to facilitate traveling and working chances for disabled citizens.

The issue of financing support for people with disabilities is truly important as well. Each country has a different budget threshold for the disabled. Regarding to the percentage of GDP allocated to people with disabilities in Europe, Denmark ranks highest (5,1%) and the lowest is Malta (0,6%).

There is not a country which has a perfect policy in the area of disabled persons. We may find a country which has more appropriate solutions but still they have others problem. At this period the situation could be even worse because the COVID-19. However, we should pay more attention to the disabled people and try to improve the assessment system and everything which is connected with this process.