Source: European Parliament
The European Accessibility Act is a directive with legal base Article 114 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Under this legal base, the legislator can adopt measures for the approximation of laws in the Member States, with the objective of the establishment and functioning of the internal market.
The related Impact Assessment clarified that there was no national legislation on accessibility of domestic appliances. Hence no barriers in the market due to divergent legislation were identified, with domestic appliances falling outside the scope of the Commission proposal.
Nevertheless, the Commission supports the accessibility of user interfaces including by the development of accessibility standards, such as those under standardisation request M587 regarding the accessibility requirements of products and services in support of the European Accessibility Act[1]. These could help manufacturers of domestic appliances to address accessibility of their products.
In addition, through the AccessibleEU centre, the Commission supports capacity building and training on accessibility including for manufacturing industries.
- [1] https://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-databases/enorm/mandate/587_en