The Written Declaration bid for neurodegenerative diseases: a useful experience

The bid for a Written Declaration for neurodegenerative diseases (NDDs) in the workplace managed to gather 161 signatures from Members of the European Parliament (MEP), which was unfortunately not enough for the document to become an official position of the European Parliament on the backdrop of a very crowded public agenda leading up to the European elections in May.

However, EMSP believes that this was a useful opportunity to highlight the challenges for people with NDDs and that it should represent the starting point of a sustained campaign to ensure proper employment for those living with multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or other NDDs.

EMSP would like to underline that, starting with the panel discussion on neurodegenerative diseases in the workplace from July 2013 and concluding with the last efforts to raise signatures from December 2013, this initiative received great support from MEP Angelika Werthmann, the main signatory of the Written Declaration bid. Mrs Werthmann has become a dedicated supporter of the cause of people with multiple sclerosis and other types of NDDs and has expressed her willingness to be involved in future awareness-raising projects.

EMSP would also like to acknowledge the productive collaboration with European Parkinson’s Disease Association (EPDA) and with Alzheimer Europe (AE). Our combined efforts resulted in a very positive panel discussion which was attended by policy-makers, specialists and supporters from the neurodegenerative field. A comprehensive event report can be found here.