On 5th April the EBC General Secretary Riccardo Viaggi attended on behalf of SBS (Small Buisness Standards) the Plenary meeting of the CEN-CENELEC Joint Working Group on buildings accessibility. The meeting took place in Madrid, Spain, where representatives from 10 countries were hosted by ONCE, the Spanish national organisation representing the blind and partially sighted persons.
SBS – as the European organisation representing SMEs in the standard making field – has been involved in this work through EBC since its beginning.
In addition to approving the conversion of the group into a proper Joint Technical Committee, the meeting was an opportunity to advance on the work under European Commission Mandate to agree on common guidelines for accessibility requirements when procuring and designing buildings. The Committee also decided on a tentative work timeline with the future meeting taking place in September and a possible launch of the Public Enquiry phase at the end of November.