You have accessed the EBU online legislative database. Its purpose is threefold:

• To help ensure an effective implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities;
• To provide up-to-date information on specific legislation relevant to blind and partially sighted people in Europe;
• To enable EBU member organisations to record the extent to which their country's legislation provides the rights contained in the Convention.

The database builds upon a set of statements (see below) developed by the EBU Rights Commission. The statements define the needs and characteristics of blind and partially sighted people in relation to the relevant UN Convention articles.

15 draft statements have been prepared and fed into the database. Each of these has the same structure:

Section 1 - Reproduction of the relevant Convention article. This text contains references (R1, R2, etc) that relate to the content of Section 3 of the statement.

Section 2 - Declaration of the needs and characteristics of blind and partially sighted people relevant to the Convention article.

Section 3 - Important aspects of the Convention article that relate to the needs and characteristics identified in Section 1.

EBU members will be invited to update the database as the process of implementation progresses in their country. As the database develops, it will provide a reference source for monitoring and for comparison. This will be of value to EBU and other agencies who wish to monitor the implementation of the Convention. The four items in bold in the list below have detailed information for different countries.