”Select ALL” e-Accessibility Assessment Report for South Eastern Europe 24
The 2008 Television Without Frontiers Directive Article 3(c) states that:
“Member States shall encourage media services providers under their jurisdiction to ensure that their services are gradually made accessible to people with a visual or hearing disability.” Thus, Member States have the obligation (“shall”) to encourage media services providers to progressively make their services accessible, by for instance promoting e-accessibility measures and/or supporting initiatives from media services providers. The Directive also offers some examples on how to develop accessibility: “the means to achieve accessibility should include, but need not be limited to, sign language, subtitling, audio description and easily understandable menu navigation” 25 (Recital 64). A further significant milestone has been achieved with the publication in November 2010 of a new Commission strategy, European Disability Strategy 2010-2020: A Renewed Commitment to a 26 Barrier-Free Europe. Again, it notes that progress is too slow, and underlines a business case for making services and products available to all. For instance, the EU market for assistive devices is in the region of 30 billion, but is still too fragmented and has huge scope for growth. The main focus is on eliminating barriers, and eight main areas are identified for action. e-Accessibility comes under Area 1 Accessibility, and is set alongside access to the physical environment and to transportation. It proposes to use legislation and other instruments such as standardization to optimize accessibility. It will: •
• • •
explore the merits of adopting regulatory measures to ensure accessibility of products and services, including measures to step up the use of public procurement (proven to be very effective in the United States); encourage the incorporation of accessibility and ‘design for all’ in educational curricula and training for relevant professions; foster an EU-wide market for assistive technology; consider proposing a ‘European Accessibility Act’ by 2012 that might include developing specific standards for particular sectors to substantially improve the proper functioning of the internal market for accessible products and services.
Each of these is likely to include e-Accessibility aspects.
24 See http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/audiovisual_and_media/l24101_en.htm. 25 The European Disability Forum produced a toolkit on how to adapt this into national law: Toolkit for the Transposition of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive into National EU Member States Law. September 2008 http://cms.horus.be/files/99909/MediaArchive/library/EDF_Toolkit_for_the_Transposition_of_AVMS_Directive.pdf.
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26 Communication from the EU Commission COM (2010) 636 Final. See http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2010:0636:FIN:EN:PDF. This will shape future EU action in this area.