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Much of this month’s work was to prepare the annual Advocacy Committee meeting, taking place in Vilnius, Lithuania, on 18-19 October.
Employment
We also continued the work on a note for the European Semester process on the compatibility of disability benefits with employment, based on further feedback received from our members in the EU.
Inclusive design
We were solicited by Worldline, European provider of payment terminals and financial services for the testing or validation services for terminals and related software. This follows on previous contact with them about our recommendations document. The request was passed on to the leader of Pay-Able taskforce, for follow-up.
We were represented by an expert of our Belgian member at an EDF-organised “meet Oracle” event on accessibility.
We continued to prepare the future campaign for accessible household appliances. The Advocacy Committee meeting will have breakout groups to brainstorm on some key questions.
Mobility
Our UK member will participate for us in a “Partners for Automated Vehicle Education Europe” initiative (PAVE Europe) in November. We have fed them with the EBU position in that perspective.
Miscellaneous
We responded to a call from the Council of Europe’s Steering Committee on Human Rights for input on AI and democratic processes (where accessibility is one among various concerns). We have though not yet heard back from the Council of Europe about maintaining the EBU participatory status.
We have not yet heard official confirmation that it its Equal Treatment Directive proposal is maintained after all, but are ready to communicate with a press release in that eventuality.