Respected Mr. Vice-President, horable ladies and gentlemen, members of the Parliament.

First of all, I would like to express my pleasure that finally one person with severe disability has got a chance to participate equally in work of highest legislative body in the state.

Of course, this fact does not minimise challenges that are waiting for me in this work, but I hope that my role will be just a first step and that in the next mandate will be more persons with disability which will have this opportunity.

I would like to say something about the status of persons with disabilities in Serbia and to point to some good and some,a maybe not so good, sides that this state budged predict. It is well known fact, that poverty of persons with disabilities is three times higher than in other population. Causes for that are several i.e lack of educational opportunities, inaccessible environment, inaccessible public transport, social prejudices... It is quite clear that persons with disabilities in almost 90% depend of social transfers and only 13% persons with disabilities in Serbia are employed. Out of this percentage, 10% work in NGO sector and 3% in other sectors. Therefore it is very important to establish programs and positive measured which will contribute to improvement of employment of persons with disabilities and, of course, to establish solid information system, as many of them do not have enough information on these programs.

It is good that our state in past several years changes its attitude towards persons with disabilities and brings such positive measure i.e. tax system which provides some benefits to employers who employed person with disability. It is important to continues such tendencies. Following its program, G17 Plus party will continue to work on creation the conditions for equalisation of opportunities for persons with disabilities, in area that this party took responsibility of.

It is good that this budget predict positive measures in the area of employment for persons with disabilities, with the amount of 402 million dinars for refunding the incomes in organisations that employes them and more than 300 million dinars to equip their working places and to improve working conditions.

There are about 530 million dinars in training programs and there will be additional part for training and changing the qualifications of persons with disabilities in order to find them better job. This is important too as within the last year, between 117 persons with disabilities that were employed through National Employment Bureau, 50% of them have just grammar school or incompleted secondary school. Out of those 117 just two persons with disabilities have higheducation and they are employed in Belgrade. That is why such programs are important – to train this group of people, to teach them how to make their small business plans and to open the possibility of self-employment and entering the open market, instead of sheltered life and work conditions. Employment of persons with disabilities is not just an economic component, it has to have its social part.

It is also good that the Ministry for Sport and Youth will shift part of the resource on financing programs for sport disciplines for persons with disabilities.

Although disability as a phenomenon is part of all area of the society and should be the responsibility of all Ministries, it is clear that some of Ministires are the axes for disability policy, such as education, employment, economy, health and social policy.

That is why I am not so clear, maybe as I am new in this job, about some lower amount of money addressed to Fund for improving the status of persons with disabilities and to Fund for financih humanitarian organisations, comparing to the last year.

This should not be the case, because the organisation of persons with disabilities and organisations of parents of persons who could not advocates themselves, are important as they initiated all projects, educational programs, training programs, working engagement programs for persons with disabilities. One research that Center for Independent Living Serbia running indicates that 90% of services of social protection on local level is provided by organisation of persons with disabilities. It is extremelly important that they continue this role.

Additional, important fact is that organisations of persons with disabilities were and should be respected partner to Government in creating the disability policy. They actively work on the Law on preventing discrimination on persons with disabilities and Strategy for improving the status of persons with disabilities, adopted in this Assembly last year.

If this financial resources stayed as proposed those organisations will not be able to fulfill their function of advocacy for the rights of persons with disabilities and this will minise their role asorganisations of civil society. I am highlighthing this even more, as six months ago UN adopted the first Convention on rights of persons with disabilities and Serbia participated in this process very active. Serbian Government should sign this Convention and I hope that this Assembly will ratify this Convention next year.

That is why I appeal for support to these organisations in organisational, personal and economic way, to support them to continue their valuable work and to show, together with other citizens, that disability could be the investment and not just a burden to the society. Thank you.