Greece's Three-Cycle Digital Accessibility Monitoring (2021–2024) — a Persistent 90% Accessibility-Statement Gap

Under EU Directive 2016/2102 and standard EN 301 549 v3.2.1, Greece's Ministry of Digital Governance — supported since 2021 by the National Accessibility Authority set up under Law 4780/2021 — ran simplified and in-depth monitoring of public-sector websites and mobile apps across three consecutive cycles (2021–2022, 2022–2023 and 2023–2024), then published a dedicated cross-cycle comparison of the findings.
The audited sample grew steadily: 404 sites/apps in 2021–2022, 443 in 2022–2023 and 451 in 2023–2024. PDF document checks were added from 2022–2023 (31 audits, extended to 29 in 2023–2024). Across all three cycles, 85–90% of infringements concerned the Perceivable, Operable and Robust principles, and up to 90% of audited sites lacked a compliant accessibility statement in every period. The single most frequent infringements were 'Link Purpose (in Context)' (31.61% of cases in the latest cycle) and 'Non-Text Content' (29.39%), followed by 'Info and Relationships' (15.07%) and 'Parsing' (13.39%).
The Ministry's own cross-cycle analysis is candid that 'despite gradual improvements, key challenges in digital accessibility persist,' singling out the systematic absence of accessibility statements and continuing weaknesses in PDF documents. The findings fed directly into Greece's National Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2024–2030.

Read the full analysis: https://www.gsis.gr/anakoinosi-ekthesi-parakoloythisis-tis-psifiakis-prosbasimotitas-istotopon-efarmogon-gia-forites