Accessibility Legislation at European Level

This document provides information on existing European Union legislation on accessibility. It is designed to be accessible to a wide variety of stakeholders with no pre-existing knowledge of European Union legislation on accessibility. This document provides the basic knowledge needed for person with disabilities (and their support groups including civil society organisations), public authorities, economic operators (such as service providers or manufacturers) and various accessibility experts, to discover the existing landscape of European Union regulations related to accessibility, and the duties and roles foreseen for each group of stakeholders.

Following the presentation of essential notions of disability and accessibility, this document reviews existing legal documents containing provisions on accessibility and applicable within the European Union, focusing on the UN CRPD, the European Accessibility Act, the Web Accessibility Directive, the Public Procurement Directive, and the European Electronic Communications Code. This section also reviews existing standards deemed essential to reach the objectives of these legislations, although another ACCESSIBLE EU document, Accessibility Standards at European Level, provides more depth in these considerations. This document should be considered a companion piece to the Accessibility report.

After reviewing the existing accessibility-focused legal acts, this document discusses implications for the European Union Member States and for other key stakeholders, while exploring several factors for successful implementation and the current state of implementation of these Directives. Throughout the document, various useful references and resources, from official legal acts to studies and toolkits, are included in footnotes.