State of the art

The drive to promote free movement for all people across Europe has generated a series of Policies and guidelines at European, national and regional level such as those laid down by the Amsterdam Treaty and other agreements: - the free movement provisions of Regulation 1612/68; - the Rights of Residence directives; - the social security co-ordinating rules in regulation 1408/71, etc to cover the following areas:

• To remove skills barriers with the recognition of professional qualification and skills acquired at work.
• To remove barriers to mobility, calling for the elimination of obstacles to services and to cross border supplementary pension schemes, providing support to researcher, student, trainer and teacher mobility, support for mobility of third country nationals and modernisation of social security.
• Freedom and dissemination of information on these issues through information campaigns.

This has generated a series of Policies and guidelines at European, national and regional level to promote free movement. Nevertheless, the question remains as to at which point do these policies take into consideration people with different kinds of disabilities? Is the right to free movement an exercisable right that is within the reach of the different groups of disabled people?