World Diabetes Day

Speech by Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP delivered to the European Parliament on Mon 15th Nov 2004

Mr President, 14 November is World Diabetes Day. To mark this, I would ask MEP colleagues to follow up in their own countries the question of job discrimination against diabetics. All EU countries operate blanket exclusions against people with diabetes in certain posts, but the range of excluded occupations varies widely. For instance, Belgium and the UK bar diabetics from being police officers, but Hungary and Portugal do not. Italy bars them from being ambulance drivers, but the UK, Portugal and Greece do not. In the UK they cannot be air traffic controllers, whereas in Greece and Portugal they can.

In a European Union with a common market and the freedom of movement of workers, this makes absolutely no sense. I will be putting questions to the Commission on this, but I must point out to my colleagues how illogical the situation is. Some of these bans date back 40 years or so and they do not take account of modern treatments. This kind of blanket discrimination must be abolished.