OUR CAMPAIGNS
Marrakesh Treaty
Slovenia has now communicated to the European Commission its national measures to implement the Marrakesh Treaty Directive. Over a year after deadline, 2 EU countries still need to adopt national legislation: Greece and Luxembourg.
No recent progress in the status of ratification of the Treaty in wider Europe.
More generally, on accessible books, Fondazione LIA (for Italian Accessible Books) released a paper: E-Books for all: towards an accessible publishing ecosystem and consulted us about it.
Audiovisual Media Services Directive
EBU was represented by DBSV’s Dr Jan Meuel at the annual Access Services Experts Meeting of the European broadcasting Union in Dublin, on 17 and 18 October. Apparently we were the only organisation representing the interests of disabled persons. Hopefully EBU participation is such annual events will become systematic.
EDF published a toolkit on the transposition of the AVMSD.
Air transport
We sent to the European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC) facilitation sub-group on transport for persons with reduced mobility, our recent report, 'Most frequent problems experienced by blind and partially sighted persons when travelling by air'
Connected and automated vehicles
EBU was represented by our Hungarian member MVGYOSZ (Attila Ollé Coordinator of International Affairs, and Orsolya Németh Accessibility Expert) on an ITU Panel Session and Workshop on "The Turing Test for Autonomous Driving - A Global Performance Standard for AI on our Roads" (Budapest, 10 September 2019).
MISCELLANEOUS
Developments in EU Institutions after European elections
The new European Commission is expected to be in place at the beginning of December 2019, after that the last commissioners-designate will have been approved by the European Parliament.
Without further delay, the EBU President has sent a letter in November to Commissioner-designate for Equality, Helena Dalli, to congratulate her, send her our Statement on European Elections 2019 and make contact for future collaboration with her services.
We are organising a cocktail event at the European Parliament, kindly sponsored by French MEP Chrysoula Zacharopoulou (Renew Europe Group), to meet with MEPs and exchange around our Statement.