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Accessibility Statement

Accessibility

This web accessibility statement contains important information that states the level of web accessibility to which the website conforms.

The Web Accessibility Directive has been in force since 22 December 2016. It provides people living with disabilities with better access to the websites and mobile apps of public services.

The rules laid down in the Directive reflect the Commission's ongoing work to build a social and inclusive European 'Union of equality', where all Europeans can play a full and active part in the digital economy and society.

Accessibility Statement of the EEAS Website

This statement applies to content published on the domain: https://www.eeas.europa.eu/. Under this domain you can find the website of headquarters of European External Action Service, of EU Delegations, CSDP Missions and Operations, as well as the websites of the EU Election Observation Missions.

The technical and the editorial aspects of this website are managed by the European External Action Service (EEAS).

Every user of the site should be able to engage with the content fully.

Users should be able to:

  • zoom up to 200% without problems
  • navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
  • navigate most of the website using a modern screen reader and speech recognition software (on a computer or phone)

This website is designed to comply with the technical standard for websites and mobile apps, EN 301 549, v.3.2.1. This closely follows level ‘AA’ of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.1.

Compliance status

This website is partially compliant with technical standard EN 301 549 v.3.2.1 and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA. See ‘Non-accessible content’ for more details.

The website was last tested on 26/01/2024.

Preparation of this statement

This statement was reviewed on 26/01/2024.

The declarations made in the statement, as regards compliance with the requirements set out in Directive (EU) 2016/2102 are accurate and based on an actual evaluation of the website's or mobile application's compliance with the requirements of Directive (EU) 2016/2102, such as:

  • A self-assessment done by the public sector body
  • Manual testing of each content type and pages
  • Testing assisted with the WAVE accessibility evaluation tool, Lighthouse accessibility for Chrome and the Accessibility feature for Mozilla Firefox
  • Use of AI tools to evaluate accessibility reports: https://www.accessibilitychecker.org/ and https://www.accessi.org/

Feedback

We welcome your feedback on the accessibility of the EEAS website. Please let us know if you encounter accessibility barriers using the contact details listed below:

We try to respond to feedback within 15 business days from the date of receipt of the enquiry.

Compatibility with browsers and assistive technology

The EEAS website is designed to be compatible with the following most used assistive technologies:

  • the latest version of Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari browsers.

Technical specifications

The accessibility of the EEAS website relies on the following technologies to work with the particular combination of web browser and any assistive technologies or plugins installed on any computer or device:

  • HTML
  • WAI-ARIA
  • CSS
  • JavaScript

Non-accessible content

Despite our best efforts to ensure accessibility of the EEAS website, we are aware of some limitations, which we are working to fix. Below is a description of known limitations and potential solutions. Please contact us if you encounter an issue not listed below.

Known limitations for the ‘EEAS’ website:

  1. Some functionalities are not accessible using only a keyboard
  2. Most heading elements are not used consistently
  3. Some labels are not correctly connected with their corresponding form fields
  4. Images published prior to 2019 may not display alternative text
  5. Infographic material might not contain all the information in the alternative text description due to limitation of characters
  6. Some videos do not have alternative text descriptions, especially videos published prior 2019
  7. Some buttons and/or links don’t have readable text
  8. Some audio and video content are missing a transcript for users with hearing impairment
  9. Some content is provided in a format (PDF or JPG) that may not contain all the information in the alternative text description, this includes infographics, charts, cards.

Timeline for improvement

Improvements to the above mentioned technical issues will be addressed in the course of 2024, aiming to improve the accessibility of the website. Our editorial teams will continue to be trained to follow the correct procedures to ensure accessibility in the content uploaded.