UPDATE: The Ministry of European Investment and Projects confirms in its latest response what the CRJ has warned in all its requests and position papers: the Commission will not accept the construction of sheltered housing. MIPE: “the measure has not been included in the updated version of the POIDS, following the negative opinion from the European Commission (September 2021).”.
Full correspondence, including the comments of the CRJ to the above reply, here.
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If we ended up asking the Minister / Prime Minister in court for the minutes of a meeting we attended as members of the OPISD Committee (Operational Programme for Inclusion and Social Dignity), can you imagine how the civil society can really contribute to all these consultations, made just to tick off some procedural steps…
Context: the Centre for Legal Resources (CLR) is looking at how the Government intends to include people with disabilities in the community, especially in the context where, in recent years, the State has seen this process only as a good justification for attracting European funds to build sheltered housing and day centres, which in fact do not represent – as we have been repeatedly warned by the UN Committee and the EC – a form of integration of people with disabilities in the community, but only an extension of institutionalisation in institutions with less capacity than those we have to close.
Although the CLR is, in theory, part of this process of finalising the OPISD priorities before they are sent to the European Commission, in practice it does not receive the MINUTES of the Committee’s meeting of 10 August, the draft text agreed following consultation of the members, nor the concept note which we learn has already been sent to the Commission WITHOUT CONSULTATION OF THE MEMBERS… The CLR has repeatedly warned (including at Minister and interim Minister/Prime Minister level) of the danger that European money will be channelled, just as in previous governments, to the very components that the European Commission and the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities warn should not be supported by such sums.
After the dismissal of Minister Ghinea, the last of our attempts to see the documents relating to the process in which we are involved, reached the desk of Mr Florin Cîțu, who has also taken over the portfolio of the Ministry of European Funds. His response (in fact, his lack of response to our request) puts us in a position to ask for these documents in court…
Public request to Minister Ghinea, here.
📌 Răspunsul dlui Florin Cîțu, prim-ministru, aici.
We will come back in the coming days with data, by counties, on concrete cases, which clearly show how Romania is wasting European money on a misunderstood process and how it is preparing to prolong this practice that we have been warned by European forums must stop and which entails firm consequences for those who use this money for the declared purpose of deinstitutionalisation.
The CRPD Committee recommended “to strengthen the monitoring of the use of European Structural and Investment Funds to ensure that they are used strictly for the development of support services for people with disabilities in local communities and not for the redevelopment or expansion of institutions [and] to suspend, withdraw and recover payments if the obligation to respect fundamental rights is breached.”
We would also like to inform you that the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities and the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, as well as the right to non-discrimination, in this context sent a letter to the European Commission in May 2020. This raises alarm bells about the use of European structural and investment funds to invest in existing institutions or to replace large-scale institutions with smaller ones (i.e. trans-institutionalisation). This letter also refers to projects in Romania under P.O.R/8/8.1/8.3/B/1. Source: https://s9.ro/1gm5.
Otherwise, the Prime Minister assures us that he is very concerned about ensuring transparency…
