It becomes mandatory by law. On Monday, May 6, Alfred Simonis, the acting president of the Chamber of Deputies, submitted to the Senate a draft law aimed at people with disabilities. Here’s what it’s all about, exactly.
Unrestricted access to the beaches for the disabled
The interim president of the Chamber of Deputies, social democrat Alfred Simonis, submitted a project to the Senate aimed at ensuring unrestricted access to the beaches for people with disabilities.
This project proposes the establishment of a common obligation, partly of the Romanian state and partly of the beach administrators, to provide the necessary infrastructure for access to the beach area.
This includes the construction of ramps on the water surface, equipped with floating armchairs, specially arranged sunbeds and walkways to them, as well as the installation of special toilet modules.
“The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union provides, among other things, the right to an independent life.
If, in the case of the majority of the population, full participation in all aspects of life is implicit, in the case of people with disabilities, access to certain facilities is much more difficult”, states PSD deputy Alfred Simonis, in the statement of reasons for the draft law.
Therefore, this legislative initiative completes the Emergency Ordinance 19/2006 regarding the use of Black Sea beaches and the control of the activities carried out on the beach, in the sense that the local public administration authorities, which are located within the territorial range of beaches with tourist destination, also have the obligation “to ensure unrestricted access to the beach area for people with disabilities, by building the necessary infrastructure”.
They must “provide the necessary infrastructure for people with disabilities in the beach area, namely access ramps to the water surface equipped with floating armchairs, specially arranged sunbeds and walkways to them, toilet modules, adapted for people with disabilities and walkways to these”.
The provisions of this law enter into force 180 days after publication in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I.
The draft law was submitted to the Senate, as the first referred forum, and the Chamber of Deputies is the decision-making forum.
How many disabled people are there in Romania?
On December 31, 2023, according to the statistics of the Ministry of Labor and Social Solidarity (MMSS), the total number of people with disabilities in Romania was 923,578. Of these, 98.28% (907,715 people) were in the care of families and/or living independently (non-institutionalized), while 1.72% (15,863 people) were in public residential social assistance institutions.
At the end of the previous year, the rate of people with disabilities in the Romanian population was 4.22%. The highest rates were recorded in the South-West Oltenia, South-Muntenia and North-West regions.
At the level of counties and municipalities, the largest number of persons with disabilities was registered in the municipality of Bucharest (78,527 persons), followed by the county of Prahova (38,337 persons), while the lowest number was registered in the county of Covasna (6,838 persons). You can read more here.
