As more and more services are delivered online, because it is cost effective to do so, inaccessible websites increase the ‘digital divide’, i.e. blind people who need assistive technology (e.g. text-to-speech screen reader software) to access websites continue to be denied access to public services and basic services provided online such as education, health, social protection, employment, transport, banking, housing, and so on.

People with disabilities rely on websites being designed in an accessible manner, according to recognised web accessibility standards. Unfortunately, the vast majority of websites, including public sector websites, do not meet these voluntary standards - in 2008 the European Commission published a study highlighting that only 2.6% of key public and commercial websites in Member States were accessible, while only 5.3% of government websites were accessible. This is evidence that non-binding instruments have failed to deliver accessible websites.

In addition, there is now growing evidence that divergent policy approaches to web accessibility in Member States are fragmenting the digital market, with an increasing number of Member States taking action to improve web accessibility, including through specific national legal obligations, thus further increasing market fragmentation. This incurs additional costs for businesses and creates barriers to trade, impeding growth in the digital internal market.

So it is now time for the EU to deliver legislation to ensure that public websites and websites delivering basic services of public interest are made accessible as soon as possible.

ANEC recognises the great potential ICT can have in improving consumers’ everyday lives. However the enjoyment of these potential benefits cannot be diminished or taken away for some consumers due to a lack of accessibility. We indeed need to ensure that all consumers, including older people and people with disabilities have the same access to public and other important services through accessible websites. This is particularly important considering the European ageing population and the increase of services delivered, and sometimes only available, through the internet, which is currently excluding many consumers from basic services and essential information available online.
We believe instead of focusing on ex-post ways to increase accessibility, legal obligations should be put in place to ensure from the beginning that public websites and websites delivering basic services of public interest are made accessible, as set out in the Digital Agenda for Europe. We have seen that voluntary compliance has failed to deliver accessible websites both in the private and public sectors (for more information check ANEC study on Declarance conformance on webaccessibiity), so we believe the only solution would be for the European Commission to put in place binding legislation.

Accessibility into digital public services certainly needs "good will" but, taking in account the spectrum of matters concerned (norms and standards, training of professionnal concerned, cultural changes, ..) will not be enough !
The European Union has ratified the UNCRPD, a strong commitment taken. The Convention includes many aspects related to the uses of ICT's by PWD's and voluntary actions shall be taken to ensure its implementation.
A binding legislation could be a powerful leverage to promote the reality that indeed e-Accessibility is not a matter of choice but a necessity.

CitizensUp: a government dashboard
In relation to accessibility, I wanted to mention an initiative aiming at making "governmental data" more accessible by the citizen. The idea is to provide a more synthetic visualization of the governmental data (from OECD, World Bank, etc....)

CitizensUp is a government dashboard letting citizens from all over the world easily follow the performance of their government through open data.
http://citizensup.com/ (still in beta)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze6FAS-OB6Q