WRITTEN QUESTION E-1437/02

by Sérgio Marques (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(23 May 2002)

Subject: Disabled persons' access to public websites

There are some 37 million disabled persons in the EU, and for many of them access to websites frequently constitutes a source of insuperable difficulties. With the development of on-line public administration services in particular, there is a serious risk of the social exclusion of this sector of the population.

Over the last ten years, there has been growing world-wide and European recognition of the barriers to full participation in society which disabled people encounter. The e-Europe action plan 2002, adopted by the Feira European Council of June 2000, is a wide-ranging initiative intended to speed up and extend the use of the internet to the whole of European society, in keeping with the principle of non-discrimination. One of the plan's objectives is to improve Internet access for disabled people. This is to be implemented by the European institutions and the Member States, via the adoption of guidelines on internet access to public sites. These guidelines are a voluntary mechanism, whereby providers of public information accept a set of rules which take the form of principles, tools and methods.

Given the Commission's own acknowledgement of the need for a global, consistent strategy to guarantee the existence of a policy for involving and including people with special needs:

1. What type of measures does the Commission intend to carry out with regard to awareness-raising, publicity, education and, particularly, training, in connection with achieving full access to web sites for disabled people? When will there be a specific programme for joint training activities involving web site programmers and disabled users' representatives?

2. Since the guidelines are a voluntary mechanism, and there is a real need to eliminate existing barriers, when will there be a directive, with the requisite binding character, in this field?

3. Since the Member States and the European institutions have agreed to exchange information and carry out comparative evaluations of progress achieved, when will the results of this activity be available?

4. What type of measures does the Commission believe should be taken to develop a permanent dialogue with disabled people and their representatives, and specifically the European Disability Forum and individual experts with disabilities?

5. What type of measures does the Commission intend to carry out in order to guarantee that existing Community programmes, for example, on Internet security, are better coordinated, so as always to take account of the needs of people with disabilities?

Answer given by Mr Liikanen on behalf of the Commission

(27 June 2002)

The Commission wants to express its thanks to the Honourable Member for addressing the eEurope actions and for the interest in the domain of promoting an inclusive Information Society by means of actions to improve web accessibility for people with special needs, including persons with disabilities and the elderly.

1. In relation to the envisaged actions, a number of such, related to awareness, dissemination, education and targeted training effort to promote accessibility of persons with disabilities to web sites will be recommended to be taken by the Commission in the frame of the European Year of People with Disabilities 2003. Limited actions have already been taken within the 5th Framework Programme of Research and Development, namely the Information Society Technologies (IST) Programme to make progress within the web accessibility domain (projects such as WAI-DA (Web Accessibility Initiative Guidelines Design for All) and DASDA (Dissemination Activity Supporting Design-for-All).

2. The approach of the Commission is to voluntarily ensure good accessibility and to raise awareness by a variety of actions. Accordingly, it is at present not planned to produce any directive on this subject in the near future. However, it is expected that progress of adoption and implementation of WAI Guidelines by the Member States and the European Institutions public web sites on basis of benchmarks and exchange of best practices will be followed and monitored by the ESDIS High Level Group (Employment and Social Dimension of Information Society) appointed by Member States.

3. The ESDIS High Level Group will report on web accessibility progress in the Union as a contribution to the European Year of People with Disabilities 2003. Meanwhile, monitoring results indicating Member States web accessibility progress will also be made available on the Europa web site as part of the eEurope 2002 Action Plan.

4. The European Disability Forum (EDF) is presently participating as an observer organisation in the eAccessibility Expert Group, which acts as an advisor for ESDIS High Level Group for accessibility issues, including web accessibility. Also some of the members of this group are disabled persons themselves. In a Commission report on e-accessibility, currently in preparation, a strong recommendation will be made for direct participation of disabled persons groups in all activities concerning this theme, including research and development and standardisation activities. This report is expected to lead to a new Council Resolution, under the Danish Presidency, based on its recommendations.

5. The Commission is well aware of the need to maintain and further develop co-ordination between existing programmes and activities to ensure that such needs as the concerns of persons with disabilities, covering a wide spectrum of different domains, will have horizontal visibility and the scope of activities are well defined to avoid overlaps and to fill the gaps.

Several key activity domains like web security, require a multidisciplinary approach to deliver acceptable results and solutions. The new funding instruments for the 6th Framework Programme for Research and Development, such as integrated projects (IP) and networks of excellence (NoE), have been prepared to bring together constituencies in a coordinated manner.

In addition, the Participation for all in the knowledge based economy part of the eEurope 2002 action lines are integrated in nature, bringing together technology as well as societal, legislative, economical and standardisation knowledge and expertise.