WRITTEN QUESTION No. 3510/97 by Leonie van BLADEL to the Council. Discrimination against the elderly and the disabled by European local authorities
Date: 1997-11-14
Institutions: European Parliament, VAN BLADEL
Subjects: Netherlands, anti-discriminatory measure, disabled person, elderly person, free movement of persons, road traffic, video communications

C 158/136

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

25. 5. 98

2.
Is the Council prepared to ask the Commission to draw up guidelines to ensure that private individuals are
never given the authority to violate the privacy of citizens on the public highway, irrespective of whether or not
they do so by order of the local authorities?

Is the Council prepared to ask the Commission to draw up guidelines to ensure that local authorities never
3.
allow private individuals, such as the hotel staff referred to above, to control who can use the public highway?

4.
Does the Council realize that the proliferation of cameras operated and monitored by private individuals by
order of local authorities is a serious violation of the privacy of European citizens and is the Council prepared to
take all possible steps to call a halt to such practices by asking the Commission to draft guidelines on the matter?

Answer

(20 January 1998)

It should be pointed out to the Honourable Member that the maintenance of law and order in the territory of the
Member States of the European Union falls within the exclusive competence of the authorities of each of those
States.

The Honourable Member will therefore appreciate that the Council is not empowered to adopt a position on a
subject which does not come within the powers allocated to it under the Treaties.

(98/C 158/178)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3510/97

by Leonie van Bladel (UPE) to the Council

(14 November 1997)

Subject: Discrimination against the elderly and the disabled by European local authorities

In the Hofkwartier district of The Hague, all traffic on the corner of Molenstraat and Prinsestraat, including
1.
pedestrians, is recorded on video cameras by the local authority in connection with the closure of a section of the
city to motorized traffic. The video pictures are also monitored by private individuals, namely the staff of the
Park Hotel in The Hague, who allow only motor vehicles selected by them through the pedestrian zone between
11.30 a.m. and 5.30 p.m. This means that only clients of the Park Hotel and the Paleis Hotel can get taxis. Does
the Council not consider that this is blatant discrimination by the local authorities against citizens in general and
the elderly and disabled who frequent establishments other than the Park Hotel and Paleis Hotel in particular?

2.
Is the Council prepared to ask the Commission to draw up guidelines to ensure that private individuals are
never given the authority to violate the mobility of citizens in general and the elderly and disabled in particular on
the public highway as described above?

Answer

(26 January 1998)

The Honourable Member will understand that the Council is not in a position to be acquainted with the particular
facts that he refers to in his question, which appear to concern a local situation from which it is difficult to draw
any general conclusions for the territory of the European Union as a whole.

With specific reference to the traffic problems experienced by disabled people, the Council regards this as a
matter of great importance. The Honourable Member(cid:146)s attention is drawn to two texts in this connection: the
Resolution  on  equality  of  opportunity  for  people  with  disabilities  (20  December  1996,  OJ  C  12/97)  and  the
Recommendation on a parking card for people with disabilities, which the Council should be adopting in the near
future.