Marrakesh Treaty
In reply to our concerns expressed, jointly with EDF, about its Summary Report on its targeted consultation on the availability of accessible-format non-print works within the internal market (ref. previous Newsletter), the Commission reassuringly replied as follows: “the conclusions from the stakeholder consultation will be more developed, and we will also present the relevance of other EU legislation. In this context, we will also take into account the clarifications you have submitted.”
Reform of EU electoral law
To the Rapporteur and Shadow Rapporteurs within the European Parliament’s Constitutional Affairs committee (AFCO) we have expressed support for the EDF recommended amendments to the resolution on the reform of the EU electoral law. These amendments aim to further harmonise the electoral system and procedure applicable to European elections, to meet the needs of people with disabilities. AFCO is expected to vote on the text in December.
European Accessibility Act
The relevant unit of the European Commission thanked us for the clarification we had brought (see previous Newsletter) about our position on excluding e-books from the standardisation mandate for the implementation of the EAA.
Consultations
We replied to the following European Commission public consultations:
- The public consultation on the implementation of the Web Accessibility Directive, even if many questions were intended for individuals or from a national perspective. We used this opportunity to signal some accessibility defaults of this consultation itself and to call the Commission to practice what is preached in the directive for the public sectors of the Member States.
- The call for feedback on the roadmap for improving access to emergency communications through single number 112
Events
We attended the following events:
- EDF-ENGO meeting (7 October), focusing on the upcoming EU Review by the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
- Annual Conference of the Geneva Human Rights Platform (12 October). EBU was invited to speak in in the panel entitled ‘Building back better: How should national human rights actors address the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on persons with disabilities?’. On that occasion we were represented by our Board Member, Tytti Matsinen
- 3rd EDF peer support meeting on the European Accessibility Act (26 October)
Miscellaneous
- On 12 October, Antoine Fobe, Head of Advocacy & Campaigning, animated an EByouth e-workshop "Towards Successful Campaigning".
- On World Standards Day, 14 October, we supported on Twitter the ANEC communications campaign to highlight how their standardisation work contributed to the achievement of UN Sustainable Development Goals. We focused our support on those SDGs of more direct concern to our community.
- After the EBU annual conference on ‘Employment of Blind and Partially Sighted People - a Key to Inclusion’ (20-22 October), we circulated on Twitter the resulting Belgrade Declaration.
We have started to prepare the agenda of the annual meeting of the EBU Commission for Liaising with the EU (Ljubjana, 20-21 November).