EDF has worked on the Web Accessibility Directive for over a decade, from the pre-legislative stage through to its adoption in 2016. We provided a toolkit to support our members with transposition of the Directive in Member States and actively contributed to the development of harmonised standards. We also delivered training for our members and regularly contributed to debates on the Directive, both at EU and national level.
In this paper, submitted as an annex to the online questionnaire from the European Commission’s public consultation, we outline our key asks with regards to the forthcoming review of the Directive:
- A widened scope that includes authoring tools, as well as digital software and other IT tools used by public administration staff;
- The removal of all current exemptions in the Directive;
- Reliable and easy-to-find accessibility statements, with information that is easy to understand and helpful for users with disabilities;
- A strategy to address the existing web accessibility skills’ shortage that leads to poor advice and inadequate solutions;
- Robust enforcement that acts as a deterrent, coupled with well-functioning feedback mechanisms and effective complaints mechanisms;
- Clear guidance to address poor interpretation of the Directive’s provision on third-party content and disproportionate burden;
- Better involvement of persons with disabilities and their representative organisations in the implementation and monitoring of the Directive.
Read our response below:
Position Paper on the Web Directive: Public consultation response