Accessibility requirements for products and services - The European Accessibility Act: Initial Appraisal of a European Commission Impact Assessment

Briefing 12-04-2016

This note seeks to provide an initial analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the European Commission's Impact Assessment (IA) accompanying the above proposal, submitted on 12 December 2015 and referred to Parliament's Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection. While considerable effort has clearly been put into preparing this report and to providing information in a transparent manner, the length and level of detail do not always support clear analysis of the problem definition and clear explanation of the methodology. Although the Commission consulted widely on the issue of accessibility and made use of external expertise, the data used appears rather old. Moreover, the views of disabled citizens, who are meant to be the major end-beneficiaries of the proposal, are not explicitly apparent and could perhaps have been better reflected throughout the IA. A more detailed exploration of social considerations to counterbalance the largely economic analysis would have been welcome, despite the internal market focus of this proposal. Please click here for the full publication in PDF format