One million signatures for European deafblind and disabled people

One million European citizens, including many thousands in the UK have joined a call for European disability legislation. The European Disability Forum (EDF) has been successful in collecting more than one million signatures calling for the European Commission to introduce European disability legislation. Sense shops were particularly active in collecting more than 700 signatures. Thank you so much to all the shops for your support.

On 4 October 2007, Sense and the European Deafblind Network (EDbN) took part in the event to mark the handing in of the signatures to the European Commission as part of the UK delegation. Sense campaigns officer Lucy Drescher went along with Graham Hicks, who is deafblind, to represent Sense. There were delegations of disabled people from 30 European countries, political speeches and a variety of musical performances. Thousands of balloons were released carrying the campaign slogan, 'We act today for a better tomorrow'. The petition was handed to Margot Wälstrom, Vice-President of the European Commission.

The DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) in the UK does not include manufactured goods (such as televisions and washing machines) and so this is a major area that we would like to see included in European disability legislation making the goods accessible to deafblind and disabled people.

Members of the UK delegation