MeAC – Measuring Progress of eAccessibility in Europe

Legislation/regulations

While there is no direct law on eAccessibility in Belgium, the Anti-discrimination Law of 2003 is reported to have resulted in various initiatives to address website accessibility.

Other initiatives

Wall-On-Line is a project set up by the Walloon Government in June 2001 to put in place a multiple-purpose and accessible online portal for all local services. Oeuvre Nationale des Aveugles is responsible for the technical aspects. A list of “priority sites” (websites providing services to the disabled) was put together in 2004 and made available online. These sites were to have been made accessible by the end of 2005, however this goal has not been achieved yet and endeavours in this area continue (see below).

AnySurfer (formerly BlindSurfer) is a collective organization of Belgian’s largest organizations for the blind and visually impaired. AnySurfer is mainly known for granting quality labels (guidelines are based on WCAG1). Both the Flemish and the Walloon Government have formally accepted the revised AnySurfer guidelines (released in July 2006) as the only set of guidelines for testing public websites.

All the future Walloon government and administration websites will have to fulfil the conditions of a graphic charter (http://egov.wallonie.be/guideweb). As of the beginning of 2007, they have accepted that these websites should obtain the AnySurfer label rather than the BlindSurfer label.  In the Walloon region, all “priority“ websites were to have obtained the BlindSurfer label before the end of 2005 and fulfil the conditions of the “graphic charter” that respects the accessibility principle of the BlindSurfer label. The BlindSurfer label was not required for other websites.

ToegankelijkWeb (previously ’’Toe Web”) is a web accessibility project established by the Flemish Government. The purpose of the project is to make all Flemish government websites accessible by the end of 2010. ToegankelijkWeb requires website owners to apply the AnySurfer guidelines. Although there is no legal obligation, website owners are strongly encouraged to make their sites accessible and are supported in this endeavour. (For example, auditing costs are remunerated and free courses are available). This project only applies to websites that are maintained by personnel of the Flemish Government (approximately 300 websites and web applications). Before the end of 2005 each webmaster was to have presented a clear Action Plan for the period 2006 – 2010 to the Flemish Parliament, with clear indications on timing, budgetary impact and a proposal for long-term quality assurance measures.

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