Brussels, 11/12/2015 (Agence Europe) - Discussions on the draft directive on the accessibility of public sector bodies' websites are likely to pick up speed in the near future. A few weeks before handing over the reins to the Netherlands, the Luxembourg Presidency of the Council of the EU indicated its intention to seek a negotiating mandate at the next meeting of the committee of permanent representatives (Coreper) on 18 December. The announcement came at the Telecommunications Council in Brussels on Friday 11 December.
The draft directive, presented in December 2012, establishes technical provisions to facilitate access to certain types of public sector body websites that provide essential information and services (such as, for example, job-search services and enrolment at university). While the European Parliament agreed its position in February 2014, the Council has long debated the scope of the proposed directive.
The latest draft compromise, which will be on the table of the permanent representatives on 18 December, extends the scope of the initial proposal to include the websites of national, regional and local authorities and the sites controlled by them, while introducing a series of exemptions. The exclusions relate to intranets, extranets, websites that are not updated and other specific content, such as third party content not commissioned by public sector bodies, cartography services and certain types of reproduction of heritage collection items.
The text sets four key principles of accessibility: perceivability (ie information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive), operability (ie user interface components and navigation must be operable, understandability (ie information and the operation of user interface must be understandable), robustness (ie content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents). It then introduces a minimum harmonisation clause under which member states will be able to apply the provisions of the directive to content or sites which are not covered. It also puts in place a feedback mechanism to allow users to flag up accessibility problems. The text also sets different application dates for websites created before or after the transposition date (three years for new sites and four years for existing sites).
The European Blind Union (EBU) says the proposed agreement is, quite simply, unacceptable. “A recent draft prepared by the Luxembourg Presidency shows that EU governments intend to stop millions of disabled EU citizens from accessing the kind of digital content that everyone else now takes for granted”, states the EBU in a press release published at the start of December. It is unhappy that, under the proposal, apps and existing downloadable documents (PDF, Word, etc.) would not have to be made accessible. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)