Mandate M/376: Accessibility Requirements for Public Procurement of ICT

A public agency that buys a case-management system, a website or a kiosk needs a way to say what “accessible” means in the tender. Without a shared reference, every buyer writes its own wording, and suppliers face different demands in each country. Mandate M/376 was the European Commission’s answer to that problem. Work under it began in the years after 2005, and later documents, including a 2011 work programme and discussions of WCAG 2.0, pointed to it as the place where European accessibility requirements for ICT purchasing were being prepared.

What the mandate asked for

The Commission’s Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry issued M/376 in December 2005. It was a standardisation mandate addressed to CEN, CENELEC and ETSI, the European standards organisations. Its title describes the task: to support European accessibility requirements for public procurement of products and services in the ICT domain.

The Commission’s Rolling Plan on ICT standardisation says the work took into account national and international standards on accessibility. Examples it names are those adopted by the US Access Board, the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative and related ISO work.

Two phases of work

The mandate was carried out in phases. Phase 1 produced ETSI Technical Report TR 102 612, dated March 2009. It surveyed European accessibility requirements for public procurement in the ICT domain. A separate CEN project team report from 2009 covered conformity assessment systems and schemes for accessibility requirements.

Phase 2 produced the main deliverable, a European Standard. ETSI describes EN 301 549 as the result of a Commission request (Mandate 376) answered by CEN, CENELEC and ETSI. It was developed by an international team of experts, with the participation of industry and of organizations representing consumers, people with disabilities and older persons.

ETSI’s own foreword says the standard specified functional accessibility requirements for ICT products and services. For each requirement it gave test procedures and an evaluation method in a form suitable for use in procurement. Other documents prepared under the original mandate include:

• ETSI TR 101 550, a set of documents relevant to the standard;
• ETSI TR 101 551, guidelines on using accessibility award criteria in procurement.

What came after

The mandate also foresaw a revision of the standard beyond web and mobile accessibility requirements. According to the Commission’s Rolling Plan, this led to EN 301 549 V3.1.1 in November 2019, published with some corrections in March 2021. The Rolling Plan adds that the resulting standard and related deliverables have been published and contain the requirements of WCAG 2.1, the W3C web accessibility guidelines.

The revision continues. ETSI has published a final draft of EN 301 549 V4.1.0 dated June 2026. It states that the document is meant for designers, developers, evaluators, manufacturers, market surveillance entities, procurers and researchers. It excludes assistive technologies designed specifically for use by people with disabilities, such as a screen reader.

ETSI notes that the requirements are written for public procurement but could also be used in other settings, such as private-sector purchasing. For a buyer, that means the standard can serve as the technical text of a tender: the requirement, the test, and the evidence a supplier must show.

The title of the standard has changed over time. Early versions were called “Accessibility requirements suitable for public procurement of ICT products and services in Europe”. Current drafts use the shorter title “Accessibility requirements for ICT products and services”.