Reflections on Protection of the Rights of People with disabilities in European Community

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Abstract

Founding member States set the European Community an economic task, that of realizing a common market, which excluded almost all social and fundamental rights, based competencies.  Persons with disabilities, along with other vulnerable groups, were overlooked in this master plan. However fifty years on the situation has changed, albeit not drastically. There is a far greater awareness of disability issues within the Community institutions, and indeed within the member States. The European Community has gained some competencies in the field of social policy, and has taken some tentative steeps to establish a Community disability policy. 

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