Disability news and resources in Europe

Library > Countries > Europe

This page lists the countries in Europe with resources and recent highlights.

Countries

• Europe
• Albania
• Andorra
• Austria
• Belarus
• Belgium
• Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Bulgaria
• Croatia
• Cyprus
• Czechia
• Denmark
• Estonia
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Greece
• Hungary
• Iceland
• Ireland
• Italy
• Kosovo
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg
• Malta
• Moldova
• Montenegro
• Netherlands
• North Macedonia
• Norway
• Poland
• Portugal
• Romania
• Russia
• Serbia
• Slovakia
• Slovenia
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• Ukraine
• United Kingdom
• Vatican City
• Western Balkans

Recent Highlights

In Belgium:

Struck out Disability Debrief feature on physical education's lessons of exclusion and ableism:

“If gym was so terrifying, it wasn’t simply because I found it unpleasant and was no good at it. It was because I knew we weren’t just playing. Our games were the symbolic staging of something bigger and incredibly important: our place in our group. The sports pitch was where the border between the included and the excluded was being drawn.” (Jan, Disability Debrief)

In France:

Anti-ableist activists and management associations a useful breakdown of political history of disability in France and understanding the different claims of organisations to represent disabled people. (2024, Capucine Lemaire)

In Germany:

The choices are not equal. Raúl Krauthausen challenges segregation of disabled people in Germany: in education, work and housing. (Mar, Disability Debrief)

In Ireland:

More harm, more barriers, more silence: intimate partner abuse leaves disabled women feeling hurt, disbelieved and isolated, new research finds:

“abusive partners, often in the position of a carer, weaponise women’s disabilities including withholding medication, denying basic care and mobility needs, using impairments to portray the woman as an unfit parent and inflicting verbal and physical abuse that targets their disability.” (2024, RTE)

In Netherlands:

“We had a normal relationship, but people treated us differently” Personal essay by Inge Volleberg on growing up with Esther, her sister with Down Syndrome:

“In general, interactions went like this: I want to tell a funny story about my sister. Ah, they will not understand what is funny about it if they don't know about her disability. I quickly note her disability as a sidenote, so that I can tell the funny story. Now the mood shifts, the other person gets this sad look. They tell me: Aww, condolences? I am in no mood for my funny story anymore.” (May, Inclusion Europe)

In Poland:

The ‘tug-of-war’ for disability rights. The push and pull of progress and retreat from rights'-based approaches. (May, EDF)

In Sweden:

Disablised or Ablised?: Linguistic Categorisations of Dis/ability in Swedish Print Media Over Time:

“The study shows that the overall terms to name dis/ability and disablised people in Swedish have changed regularly, while the underlying concepts, structures and ways of categorisation regarding dis/ability remain the same. Dis/ability is shown to be understood along a medical-biological model as located in the individual. Ability is rarely mentioned. These results suggest that any attempts at changing mainstream society's conceptualisations of dis/ability need to involve more work than just replacing outdated or offensive words by new ones. The results also suggest a need for making tacit ableist norms explicit if they are to be challenged.” (2024, Disability Studies Quarterly)

In Switzerland:

Disability at the end of class thoughtful discussion of debate on inclusive education. (In French, 2024, Couper l'herbe sous les roues)

In Ukraine:

Russia Targeted and Deported Disabled Children From Ukraine reporting on 84 disabled people, both children and adults, forcibly moved by Russia from the Oleshky Specialized Boarding School. (2024, New Lines Magazine)

Disability Certificates Scandal: What Led to the Prosecutor General’s Resignation and What’s Next? In-depth report. (2024, Kyiv Post)

You can't just use the restroom: why Ukraine's capital is far from barrier-free. Interviews with officials and activists. (2024, UNN)

In the United Kingdom:

Going off script. Moving through shame to find pride in disabled and queer identity:

“When I was four, my life started to veer off-script. An onset of strange symptoms and unexpected feelings made me feel different from the other kids.” (Jun, Disability Debrief)

The 'war' on disabled people and my fight for an independent life. Musician and activist John Kelly:

“You've got to chain yourself to the busses
Show them what the fuss is.” (2024, the Guardian)

Beyond Disability Stigma: Examining Tolerance and Intolerance toward Disability Issues:

“Recent advances from social psychology suggest that intolerance is conceptually distinct from stigma and prejudice and results from value-driven reasons to interfere with a person’s beliefs or practices that have little to do with their identity or characteristics like impairment. However, study of (in)tolerance has so far been neglected in the disability context. In this paper, we address this gap. We argue that studying disability-related (in)tolerance is crucial for understanding disability discrimination and designing interventions to combat it.” (2024, Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research)

Fall with me My childhood, told through its falls. (2024, Disability Debrief)