The Europass portal, is an EU-funded online tool designed to help Europeans create an online CV and a cover letter, using the Europass standardised format.
The Europass formats were launched by the European Union to help Europeans everywhere easily communicate their competences across countries, and they require a CV in Europass for most job applications.
Unfortunately, the Europass online tool is still not accessible to all citizens. Due to that, a visually impaired citizen complained to the European Ombusdman about the inaccessibility of Europass in 2013. The EU ombudsman closed the enquiry in 2014 following a promise by CEDEFOP to address the accessibility issues.
The promise was not kept. The ‘solution’ developed by CEDEFOP is a ‘special’ online tool for visually impaired jobseekers, which is also difficult to access by keyboard navigation. The content of the Europass website remains by and large very difficult to access for many persons with disabilities. The offline CV format also uses a very small font size.
The tool puts persons with disabilities at a disadvantage. It acts as a barrier to access work for many Europeans with disabilities.
But we can act now! The tool is currently being evaluated. Please fill their short survey highlighting the need for the tool to include Universal Design principles, not just a “special” online toool. The deadline 27 April.
We believe that EU-funded tools should meet EU web accessibility standards. We will be responding to the survey. We will also contact the European Commission, MEPs and the EU Ombudsman to raise our concerns about this inaccessible tool.
Image: Copyright European Union