By Briony Viele and Laurence Wise
The European Accessibility Act (EAA) is a directive designed to create equal access for Europeans with disabilities to a wide range of products and services. This includes both physical and digital mediums. The deadline for compliance for all member state publishers and any that offer titles in the European Market (regardless of location) is set for 28 June 2025.
The impact is felt not only by publishers but by the entire supply chain, including retailers, e-commerce sites, online platforms and libraries that loan digital books, to name but a few.
The EAA requirements for eBooks specifically include the following:
When an eBook contains audio in addition to text, it must include synchronised text-to-speech technology.
eBook digital files must not prevent assistive technology from operating seamlessly.
The content must be displayed clearly and access to and navigation of the file content must be flexible.
The hope is to improve user experience and create a more inclusive publishing environment. The advantages of EAA compliance include reaching a wider audience, providing publishers with a competitive edge over others that are not yet fully up to date and simultaneously avoiding legal complications.
Users will be able to file complaints before national courts as of June 2025 if products or services do not meet requirements which could lead to heavy fines and tarnish publisher’s brands. This has led to concern from many sides as the EAA applies not only to current titles but also to the backlists. Converting them is not only an enormous, costly task in itself, but the worry is for many titles that were produced long before any type of accessibility standards existed, particularly rare and niche works. Difficulties in converting them could lead to removal entirely.
One initiative helping publishers to comply with the act is The DAISY Consortium. Formed in 1996, it is an international non-profit membership organisation “committed to developing equitable access to information for people with print disabilities.” It provides tools, standards, advice and best practices for publishing and reading.
Ace by DAISY is a free EPUB accessibility checking tool, “making it easier to produce higher quality files that meet international standards.” Another resource dubbed “the definitive encyclopaedia for everyone working with accessibility development and production” is the DAISY Accessible Publishing Knowledge Base, found on the Inclusive Publishing website (managed and coordinated by The DAISY Consortium) providing best practices for creating digital publications.
Various events, training, a European Inclusive Publishing Forum and a link to the Accessible Books Consortium (ABC) can all be accessed through the DAISY website found here.
With the EAA deadline fast approaching and the industry moving quickly to meet it, accessibility was naturally a topic of hot conversation at Frankfurter Buchmesse. Speaking at the Frankfurt Kids Conference, Karine Pansa – who vacates her position as president of the International Publishers Association (IPA) in the new year – touched on Brazil’s successful uptake of very similar accessibility legislation.
Implemented in 2023, the law in Brazil obligates publishing houses to provide an accessible format of any backlist title within thirty days of request and despite the expense of such measures, Pansa praised the efficiency at which publishers have adapted. After years of talk surrounding mandatory accessibility, it was ultimately data on disability figures that convinced the politicians and Brazilian lawmakers of the pressing need for action.
This importance of data in the drive for accessibility was explored elsewhere in Frankfurt too, in a panel led by Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives magazine, titled “The Accessibility Era – Are you ready for it?” The panel’s first speaker, Elisa Molinari, coordinator of Accelerating Publishing Accessibility through Collaboration in Europe (APACE), outlined the work that the directive is doing to survey the impact of the EAA on Europe’s publishing sector and libraries.
Analysing data gathered from seventeen countries, the report found a proactive response, though with varying levels of readiness. As both Alessandra Porcelli, New Business Director at Mondadori Education and Simon Holt, Content Accessibility Lead at Elsevier UK agreed, a successful and sustainable approach to the EAA hinges on integration. “[Accessibility] can no longer be an extra”, Holt remarked, “it must be integrated into every stage of the workflow” in what he calls a “company approach.” Through careful consultation with EAA experts, an open-minded and collaborative approach to problem-solving and a clear roadmap, the panel concluded that accessibility can be seamlessly incorporated into publishing production and distribution processes.
Ultimately, despite the pressure for legal compliance that the EAA is currently placing on publishing professionals, the directive represents something far bigger. The goal of spreading an accessibility culture is to empower readers, regardless of physical or neurological ability. With one billion people currently living with a disability globally, the legislation is a commitment to them, to the free and equal dissemination of words and pictures and to the right to live full and independent lives.