Skip to main content

European Accessibility Act ‘favours business demands; says disabled group

The European Disability Forum (EDF) has reacted strongly to the recent EU vote which aims to make key products and services, like phones, e-book readers, operating systems and payment terminals, more accessible to people with disabilities, under new draft EU rules. EDF is an umbrella group representing 100 associations and some 80 million disabled people across the EU. The Internal Market Committee (IMCO) amended and approved the rules, which would apply only to products and services placed on the EU market
May 8, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
The European Disability Forum (EDF) has reacted strongly to the recent EU vote which aims to make key products and services, like phones, e-book readers, operating systems and payment terminals, more accessible to people with disabilities, under new draft EU rules.


EDF is an umbrella group representing 100 associations and some 80 million disabled people across the EU.

The Internal Market Committee (IMCO) amended and approved the rules, which would apply only to products and services placed on the EU market after the directive takes effect.

The proposed European Accessibility Act (EAA) would enable people with disabilities to benefit from more accessible products and services. The draft directive sets out accessibility requirements for a list including ATMs, ticketing and check-in machines, PCs and operating systems, phones and TV equipment, consumer banking services, e-books, transport and e-commerce. MEPs added other items to the list, such as all payment terminals, e-book readers and websites and mobile device-based services of audio-visual media.

EDF says the IMCO Committee has favoured business demands over the rights of people, including persons with disabilities, older people and all consumers. This fully contradicts all previous statements by the European Parliament on the Accessibility Act and in particular the European Parliament’s resolution of 7 July 2016. It claims the report is watering down the 1690 European Commission’s proposal to such an extent that there is a risk that the Accessibility Act may be meaningless for millions of people in Europe.

The accessibility requirements would also cover the built environment where the service is provided, including transport infrastructure, such as train stations, “as regards to the construction of new infrastructure or renovations with a substantial change of the structure of the existing building”, where member states do not already have requirements in place, the committee decided.

EDF is now calling on the European Parliament to substantially amend the IMCO Committee’s report in the plenary and to promote a strong and ambitious Accessibility Act that will bring a real change in the lives of its citizens.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • C-ITS in the EU: ‘A little tribal’
    April 1, 2019
    As the C-ITS Delegated Act begins its journey through the European policy maze, Adam Hill looks at who is expecting what from this proposed framework for connected vehicles – and why some people are insisting that the lawmakers are already getting things wrong here are furrowed brows in Brussels and Strasbourg as European Union legislators begin to consider the rules which will underpin future services such as connected vehicles. The idea is to create a regulatory framework to harmonise cooperative ITS
  • Does enforcement merit a place in the EU's ITS action Plan?
    February 3, 2012
    Colin Wilson, IBI Group, looks at the implications for enforcement of the European Commission's new Action Plan for the Deployment of ITS in Europe
  • New constellation will add accuracy and security to GNSS services
    December 20, 2013
    With Galileo’s early services scheduled to start next year, Fiammetta Diani is enthusiastic about the opportunities the EU’s GNSS system will offer. Next year will be a very exciting one for Galileo, the EU’s fledgling satellite constellation; additional satellites are scheduled for launch and, as European Commission Vice President Tajani recently announced, early operational services will be starting towards the end of 2014. So it really is ‘all systems go’ as Fiammetta Diani, market development officer in
  • Monitoring and transparency preserve enforcement's reputation
    July 30, 2012
    What can be done to preserve automated enforcement's reputation in the face of media and public criticism? Here, system manufacturers and suppliers talk about what they think are the most appropriate business models. Recent events in Italy only served to once again to push automated enforcement into the media spotlight. At the heart of the matter were the numerous alleged instances of local authorities and their contract suppliers of enforcement services colluding to illegally shorten amber signal phase tim