Liikanen welcomes creation of working group on ICT access for people with disabilities
The Commission has welcomed the setting up on 12 February of a working group of national experts to monitor and improve the accessibility of people with disabilities to information society services. The creation of the working group is an initiative of the Communications Committee of EU Member States, itself set up as part of the Commission's regulatory framework on electronic communications. The group will scrutinise access to technologies such as the Internet, 3G services and digital television. Erkki Liikanen, Commissioner for Enterprise and the Information Society, said: 'People with disabilities should of course be able to share the benefits of the information society in terms of access to services and of greater choice, lower prices and higher quality. [...] I am confident that the new working group will carry these objectives forward.' For the 37 million Europeans with disabilities, as well as the increasingly high number of elderly people in the EU, the potential benefits offered by the spread of information technologies and online government services are significant. However, there is also a real risk that such groups could be excluded from the information society due to technical barriers associated with new technologies. The issue was addressed in the Commission's eEurope 2002 Action Plan, and the new eEurope 2005 Action Plan places special emphasis on increasing the availability of electronic communications and services to disadvantaged groups and regions in Europe. During 2003, the European Year of People with Disabilities, the new working group will focus its efforts on encouraging network operators and equipment manufacturers to facilitate access to e-services. The group will also work to raise awareness of the difficulties experienced by people with various disabilities in gaining access to services, and will seek to promote an exchange of good practices in overcoming such difficulties at international, regional and local level.