EU member states are still very far from obtaining a political agreement on the legislative proposal setting out access requirements for products and services (“Accessibility Act”). On Thursday 8 December, the Council of the EU can only note that the position of some countries is not even known, one year after the presentation of the proposal.
The Slovak Presidency of the Council inherited a dossier that had brought out the previous Presidency in something of a cold sweat because of its complex and highly technical character (see EUROPE 11572). This Accessibility Act was presented by the European Commission in December 2015 (see EUROPE 11444). It seeks to introduce common requirements to enable people with disabilities to have easier access to certain key products and services. It is still the subject of the preliminary discussions at the Council workgroup, which met up six times on the subject during the past six months. Certain chapters in the proposal have not yet even been looked at.
At a general level, the discussions are still in a rather confused state because a lot of member states have a number of general reservations about it and have expressed a variety of different concerns regarding both technical and political questions, particularly with regard to the scope of the proposal. The positions are very rigid, at least amongst the member states that have sufficiently examined the proposal to enable them to have a position on the matter. According to a number of different sources, the dossier is currently getting bogged down due to the situation described.
The most divisive question still involves the question of whether this “act” should have a horizontal approach or not, insofar as it covers all legislation and other EU acts where there is already an aspect relating to the question of accessibility. The transport and audio-visual areas are often cited as the most difficult because member states want to limit as many requirements proposed in terms of accessibility in these areas as possible.
Friday 2 December is celebrated as International Day for Persons with Disabilities. At this event, Commissioner Marianne Thyssen, in charge of social affairs, explained the commitment of this Commission in a press release, “This Commission has put inclusive growth and social fairness at the core of its agenda”. She was also keen to point out that, “The Accessibility Act, which the Commission proposed one year ago, uses the full potential of the Single Market to make key products and services accessible for people with disabilities”. She concluded by expressing her hope that “the proposal from the Commission can soon be adopted by the European Parliament and the Council”.
The Slovak Presidency drafted progress report is accessible at: http://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-14463-2016-INIT/en/pdf. (Original version in French by Jan Kordys)