Regulations / EN 301 549
EN 301 549, the standard doing the actual work.
European accessibility law is written in broad functional language. EN 301 549 is where those obligations become testable requirements an auditor can verify.
What it is
EN 301 549, "Accessibility requirements for ICT products and services", is a harmonized European standard maintained by ETSI, CEN, and CENELEC. It covers far more than websites: hardware, documents, software, support services. For web content specifically, chapter 9 incorporates the WCAG success criteria directly.
The WCAG relationship
For websites, meeting EN 301 549 chapter 9 means meeting WCAG 2.1 Level AA. The standard does not invent separate web rules; it adopts WCAG and adds requirements for things WCAG does not cover, such as documentation, support channels, and non-web software. This is why every serious European accessibility effort starts with a WCAG audit.
Where you will meet it
- The European Accessibility Act presumes conformity for services that meet it.
- The Web Accessibility Directive requires it for public sector websites and apps.
- EU public procurement can reference it as a technical specification, making it a contractual requirement for suppliers.
Practical reading advice
The standard is several hundred pages, and most web teams need perhaps thirty of them. If you build or maintain websites, work from WCAG 2.1 AA and treat chapter 9 as the formal citation for it. The guide EN 301 549 explained plainly walks through the structure in ten minutes, and a Complaudax audit checks your pages against the WCAG criteria the chapter references.