România la granița dintre echitate și inechitate socială a persoanelor cu dizabilități

Abstract

Disability remains quite a controversial concept for modern society both through its dynamics and through the challenges of legislative, social, and economic nature. Although it has been present since ancient times in human communities, disability has undergone a series of transformations that currently require us to integrate it into a multidisciplinary context with multiple implications of both a medical and socio-economic nature. Although there is an attempt to create a universally valid approach to disability at the European level, we still witness its reduction to a purely medical indicator, ignoring elements such as: social integration, economic security for persons with disabilities or active participation in the life of the community. The current article highlights the actual challenges of disability in Romania. Methodologically, the phenomenon of disability will be approached using existing data at the national and European level in direct relation to the legislation in the field. It is known that at the European level there is a desire for progress regarding the social inclusion of persons with disabilities through specially created programs in this regard. Although, officially, Romania offer support to disabled people, according to Law 448 from 2006, social and professional inclusion is often achieved with difficulty and the only forms of support for disabled people are the social benefits and a series of tax exemptions according to the legislation in force. Currently, there are approximately 900,000 persons with disabilities in Romania, according to data from the National Authority for the Protection of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. On the long term, this will imply high costs for the Romanian state authorities.