Accessibility
Films – Creative Europe/MEDIA funding
On 4 July, one year after the press release in which we welcomed some positive developments in the first MEDIA calls for proposals in 2021, we released a statement to deplore that the Creative Europe Regulation 2021-2027 does not appear to be delivering on its promises, despite the stated ambitions of the EU Disability Rights Strategy. In the statement, we ask the European Commission to use the opportunity of the mid-term review of the Creative Europe regulation 2021-2027, to consider introducing some benchmarking in the regulation on how MEDIAfunding is used to promote inclusion i.e., accessible films for people with visual impairment.Films – Creative Europe/MEDIA funding.
Accessible payment – implementation of Accessible Act
On 7 July we met with the company IDEX Biometrics, who presented their solution for ID authentication, namely for payment terminals: it uses fingerprint authentication to avoid having to type a secret code and still protect your card against use by a third person. EBU indicates interest in including similar solution into its recommendations.
On 1st August a list of issues was sent to the task group for accessible payment terminals, for input from the members.
Implementation of the European Accessibility Act (horizontal)
In August we relayed a lobbying action request from ANEC (the voice of consumers in EU standardisation) concerning the European Commission’s draft standardisation request regarding the accessibility of products and services (presumption of conformity with the legal requirements of accessibility of the European Accessibility Act). The EU Members States (Committee on Standards) delivered a positive opinion in July. It is now for the CEN-CENELEC Technical Boards to take their decision, by 13 September 2022. In this perspective, EBU members in the EU were asked to contact their national standardisation body (represented in CEN-CENELEC) to express full support for the draft standardisation request.
Mobility
We prepared a position paper on driverless vehicles, addressing the concerns and needs of BPS people both as vulnerable pedestrians and as potential users. The paper will be published in the context of the EU Mobility Week (16-22 September 2022).
Miscellaneous
In July we delivered a response to the European Commission’s public consultation on a sustainable EU food system. Our response focused on promoting the accessible labelling of food products.
The Commission announced that in September it will launch open public consultation on passenger rights, with the aim of potentially reviewing three regulations: air passengers rights for persons with disabilities, coach and bus, and waterborne regulations). In addition, the Commission will also organise targeted stakeholder consultations in the form of workshops or interviews.
We have been approached by the Disability Policy Advisor at Microsoft Accessibility, for our input on Alt text, audio descriptions and image descriptions.