A new law requiring all products and services sold in the EU to be made accessible for disabled people has become ensnared in the bloc’s institutional machinery, leading human rights groups to complain that national governments are trying to weaken it.

The Accessibility Act — a sprawling directive that would affect up to 80 million Europeans with disabilities and require changes to everything from train platforms to mobile phones — was proposed by the European Commission in January. But fighting over the scope of the law, and even over the definition of what constitutes a disability, has delayed any real progress in getting it adopted.

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The Commission’s proposal, which is intended to bring the EU into line with the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) that it ratified around five years ago, requires member countries to “take appropriate measures” to ensure equal access for disabled people to all services and products.

All EU countries — with the exception of Ireland — have also ratified the treaty, although a U.N. expert disability rights committee warned the EU in October last year that it had so far failed to live up to its obligations.

Technical experts sent by EU governments have met 10 times since the beginning of the year but have made little progress on the draft law. According to Council officials, discussions have yet to take place at the level of ministers and have been confined to the scope of the proposed law. Even on that issue, governments seem set on hollowing it out, according to MEPs and disability rights campaigners.

“Because of the dialogue with member states, the Commission has been reducing and reducing and reducing the scope and the obligations [of the act],” said Stig Langvad, an expert member of the U.N. committee. “From a human rights perspective, member states are not living up to their obligations.”

What is disabled?

In an effort led by current EU presidency-holder Slovakia, some governments are pushing to exempt transport infrastructure from the scope of the act, according to confidential drafting proposals seen by POLITICO.

A spokeswoman for the presidency said governments were simply looking to make sure that the Accessibility Act didn’t overlap with existing legislation in order “to exclude duplication in certain obligations for providers.”

The goal, the spokeswoman said, was “lowering administrative and financial burden” of the act’s requirements. 

Council officials who spoke on condition of anonymity denied that national governments were trying to weaken the legislation, pushing the blame for slow progress onto the Commission.

The proposal, they argued, failed to recognize that many countries, as signatories to the UNCRPD, already have extensive accessibility legislation in place. In addition, individual sectors — like transport — are already subject to tough accessibility requirements in EU law.

“While in principle there is collective goodwill, some member states believe that the different elements of this file should be tackled through a sectoral approach rather than holistically,” said Michael Farrugia, Malta’s minister for the family and social solidarity, who will steer discussions on the issue from January when Malta takes over the EU Council presidency.

But rights groups said the changes from national governments would defeat the purpose of the new legislation. “If the built environment is not included and transport is taken out,” said Yannis Vardakastanis, president of the European Disability Forum, “the Act will not be useful for persons with disabilities.”

Even the definition of what amounts to a disability has been criticized for being too vague. According to the Commission’s approach, a disability is “any physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairment, age-related impairment, or other human body performance-related causes, permanent or temporary.” Lobbyists argue that under this definition, businesses would have to make products and services accessible for drunk people.

Another problem is that the Council’s “Social Questions working party” is taking the lead on the proposal, rather than by the group that normally deals with product and service regulation. Officials involved in the discussions say that few of the experts sent by their governments to participate in the discussions are competent to discuss both internal market matters and disability rights — further slowing progress.

Parliament troubles

Meanwhile MEPs are openly criticizing governments for trying to water down the legislation, even though the assembly’s internal market committee has itself yet to move beyond initial discussions.

A debate scheduled for October 11 in the committee was postponed to November, pushing back the timetable into the middle of next year.

“They’re wrong to turn [the legislation] into an empty shell,” said Helga Stevens, a Flemish MEP who is deaf and is the president of the Parliament’s disability intergroup. “What we need is an overarching principle, which we can stand upon…. It shouldn’t be a piecemeal approach.”

“The Council is not really moving as far as we would like,” said Dita Charanzová, a Czech MEP who led negotiations on a similar proposal that introduced accessibility requirements for public sector websites. “It’s a real shame.”

But the Parliament has also shown a willingness to complicate progress on the act. In July, MEPs on the culture committee voted to remove audiovisual media services from the scope of the act and introduce similar requirements in a separate measure — the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD).

Although the EDF’s Vardakastanis described the move, agreed by MEPs Sabine Verheyen and Petra Kammerevert, as “a disgrace,” sources in the Parliament said the directive has far more chance of seeing the light of day than the Accessibility Act itself.