By Kevin Fritz

Members of the European Parliament voted last week to strengthen a proposed European Directive on Accessibility of Public Sector Bodies’ Websites.  The beefed up version of the directive would require all UK public sector websites to be accessible to users with disabilities; not just those sites proposed by the European Commission, such as social security benefits and enrolment in higher education.  The proposed directive is intended to benefit individuals with disabilities across the EU, and increase the potential of the internal market for web accessibility products and services.  The amended version would also strengthen monitoring of EU bodies’ conformance with the law.  Until the EU institutes its own specific technical web accessibility standards, the level of accessibility required by the proposed directive would be level AA of the international technical standard WCAG 2.0.  And while the recommended amendments are likely to become adopted, it is unlikely that a final agreement will take place before early 2015.

For more on the new EU public sector web accessibility rules, check out: http://bit.ly/1orjE1a.

Edited by Kristina Launey and Minh Vu