European Semester 2020-2021 country fiche on disability equality Luxembourg

Report (2021)

There is a great discrepancy between the omnipresent demands for inclusion published by official bodies and ministries and the actual participation of people with disabilities in social life. The policy ... [more ▼]

There is a great discrepancy between the omnipresent demands for inclusion published by official bodies and ministries and the actual participation of people with disabilities in social life. The policy cultivates the rhetoric of inclusion in programmatic and conceptual formulations, while at the same time maintaining or even expanding separative institutions for those that are considered not to be eligible for inclusion in the fields of education and employment (see competence centres in education and ‘inclusion’ in sheltered workshops, or the persistent exclusion of persons under guardianship from the right to vote). Inclusion is viewed primarily from an economic and neo-liberal perspective, without questioning the basic principles of a meritocratic society oriented towards proven performance. Performance appraisals, especially in the area of education and work, are largely based on the performance demanded and shown without sufficiently taking into account the way the performance is achieved. In the educational sector, the incompatibility of introducing educational standards and achieving full inclusion is not recognised. Separating establishments are renamed to inclusive settings without any fundamental reorientation. The former regional special schools for pupils with cognitive impairments were re-branded as competence centres for intellectual development. With the introduction of the competence centres, no longer official figures are published regarding pupils who are taught separately. There are also no official figures on how many pupils were assigned to the competence centres from regular schools and vice versa. It is therefore impossible to give comparative statistical evidence of the extent to which inclusive education has currently developed in Luxembourg. With regard to employment, the same problems remain as those already identified in the first Action Plan. People with disabilities experience considerable difficulty in finding a job in the mainstream labour market. Unemployment is disproportionately high among people with disabilities and lasts much longer than among job seekers without disabilities. People with disabilities are increasingly oriented towards working in a sheltered workshop under the national guidelines of the Employment Agency. The employment quotas for people with disabilities, which are legally mandated, are largely not met and are not monitored or imposed by the state. Also, some social problems already addressed in the first Action Plan have still not been tackled, such as the legal incapacity of people under guardianship. People with disabilities under guardianship are extensively excluded from self-determination and political participation. They may not vote nor may they run as candidates. As a result, almost 10 years after the introduction of the UN-CRPD no improvement has been made in this area. Furthermore, there are still problems in the implementation of the accessibility of buildings and infrastructure for public use. [less ▲]