Brussels, 02/12/2015 (Agence Europe) - Nearly four years late, the European Commission presented an Act for Accessibility, on Wednesday 2 December.
This proposed directive brings in common requirements to allow persons living with a disability to enjoy easy access to certain key products and services. Amongst other things, it covers automatic teller machines and banking services, personal computers, telephones and television equipment, telephony and audiovisual services, transport, electronic books and electronic trade.
Avoiding the pitfalls of the past. The Act for Accessibility, presented in the wake of the International Day of People with Disability, will leave the member states as much leeway as possible. The draft directive lays down a definition of accessibility and identifies products and services which need to be accessible, without specifying the technical details to achieve this result. It provides for the application of these requirements in the framework of EU rules on public procurement contracts and the use of EU funds.
The proposal also introduces a “common sense clause”, so that small and micro-enterprises do not end up facing disproportionate accessibility requirements. Less stringent compliance measures are also in place for micro-enterprises.
The proposal, which is based on Article 114 on the single market, comes under the ordinary legislative procedure and requires qualified majority of the Council. It will give the member states two years to transpose the text into their national laws and a total of six years to apply the provisions.
A painful coming into being. The idea of an Act for Accessibility dates back to 2011. At that time, the former commissioner for justice and the fundamental rights, Viviane Reding, announced proposals in favour of workers with disabilities, to cover “paid employment on the ordinary employment market, career development, and also providing support of the Union to voluntary actions carried out by businesses”.
However, she was forced to postpone (and scale down) her plans due to the misgivings of the member states, which could not agree on the proposal to counter discrimination based on religion or convictions, disability, or sexual orientation in areas other than employment. Readers may recall that the member states have been discussing this text since 2008 without managing to reach a unanimous agreement.
In 2014, a number of MEPs said that the European Commission, in search of success on which to base its initiative, was making the publication of its initiative conditional on an agreement between the Parliament and the Council on the accessibility of the websites of public sector bodies. This proposal, which was presented in 2012, is also under discussion at the Council.
However, in September 2015, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities advised the Commission to present its Act for Accessibility as soon as possible, in order to comply with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Readers may recall that all of the member states have signed this convention and that 25 of them have ratified it. Finland, Ireland and the Netherlands are currently preparing their ratifications of this international convention.
Positive reactions. The European Disability Forum and ANEC, the organisation which defends the interests of European consumers in the standardisation and certification process, welcomed the publication of this long-awaited proposal. In its press release, however, ANEC criticised the use of the EC marking to denote products and services considered accessible. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)