Statements

Approximately 15% of the world’s population experience a form of disability (World Bank, 2023) and are most likely to face discrimination and socioeconomic exclusion than people without disabilities. Poverty, restrictive access to adequate health services, education or employment represent just some of the challenges that people with disabilities experience anywhere in the world. Among the barriers that facilitate this climate of exclusion are inaccessible physical environments, existing policies and legal framework, social barriers related to employment, education and personal safety, communication barriers which affect reading, writing, hearing, speaking and understanding, stereotypes, stigma, prejudice and discrimination towards people with disabilities; We, [...]

  On June 6th at 02:50, the Russian military destroyed the Nova Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast of Ukraine. The intentional explosion caused the structure to fail and release the water in the reservoir that was stored up to a record high of 18 m, which resulted in a catastrophic flood, releasing 18 trillion litres of water. This is a humanitarian and ecological catastrophe. Thousands of people had to be evacuated from the area already. The evacuations have been impeded by continued shelling by the Russian army. The Ukrainian authorities estimate that approximately 40.000 people are [...]

Exactly 12 months ago, on 24 February 2022 Russia launched a full scale invasion in its ongoing war against Ukraine. After one year, this war has cost the lives of tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians, including almost five-hundred children, and brought unspeakable suffering upon the Ukrainian people. It has caused the biggest refugee crisis in European history since the end of World War II, displacing more than 8 million people from their homes. This is worsened by the continuous missile attacks and air attacks against civilian targets across Ukrainian cities. This is a war of choice. Russia decided to [...]

Today, we celebrate the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (IDAHOBIT). IDAHOBIT was established in order to raise awareness about the discrimination, violence and other forms of oppression LGBTQI+ people face on a daily basis around the world and to motivate people to take action against such kinds of behavior. On the 17th of May 1990, the World Health Organization (WHO) decided to remove homosexuality from the International Classification of Diseases and thus taking an imporant step towards addressing the stigma and inequalities LGBTQI+ people have been historically facing. The increasingly worrying trend against LGBTQI+ that individual European member [...]

In the end of 2019, the first official proposal of the Conference on the Future of Europe was put forward by the European Commission and the European parliament, following the initial idea mentioned by the French President, Emmanuel Macron. Originally meant to be launched on the 9th of May, 2020, last week, the institutions have given it a green light. Even with a year of delay, we are happy to see progress to be made and the Conference being ready to set off on the upcoming Europe Day. The conference promised a democratic and citizen-focused approach in the efforts of [...]