Ascendia

Accessibility Statement · WAD-aligned · self-attested 2026-05-02

Accessibility Statement

Substantially conformant. Honestly recorded.

Ascendia is committed to making ascendia.eu and its dossier surface accessible to all users, in line with the European Accessibility Act, the Web Accessibility Directive, and Romanian transposition law. This statement records the current conformance posture, the specific non-accessible content, the methodology behind the assessment, and how to report a barrier.

Counterparty register

  • Ascendia S.A.
  • WCAG 2.2 AA · EN 301 549 v3.2.1
  • EAA Directive EU 2019/882 · WAD Directive EU 2016/2102
  • MS AI for Accessibility Hall of Fame · Self-attested 2026-05-02

Compliance status · WAD § 3

This website substantially complies with the requirements.

Ascendia.eu is partially compliant with EN 301 549 v3.2.1 (referencing WCAG 2.2 Level AA), with documented exceptions in section "Non-accessible content" below. The corporate site clears 0 critical and 0 minor axe-detected violations across all 69 routes; the four WCAG 2.2 AA additions over 2.1 (2.4.11 Focus Not Obscured, 2.5.7 Dragging Movements, 2.5.8 Target Size, 3.3.8 Accessible Authentication) are individually clean. The full machine-readable evidence basis is published in the project repository under `Dev/scripts/audit/`.

01W3C WCAG 2.2 (October 2023)

WCAG 2.2 AA

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2, Level AA, are the design and engineering target across the Ascendia.eu corporate site, the LIVRESQ authoring layer, and the CoffeeLMS delivery layer. All four 2.2 AA additions over 2.1 (2.4.11, 2.5.7, 2.5.8, 3.3.8) are clean under axe-core 4.10.

02ETSI EN 301 549 v3.2.1 (2021-03)

EN 301 549 v3.2.1

European harmonised standard for accessibility of ICT products and services. Used as the procurement-grade reference under WAD and EU public-sector procurement frameworks. The corporate site declares substantial conformance under Clause 9 (Web).

03Directive EU 2019/882

European Accessibility Act

Directive EU 2019/882 entered into force 28 June 2025. Member-state transposition variations are tracked under the Compliance & Governance desk. The Ascendia.eu surface is in scope; LIVRESQ and CoffeeLMS each issue product-specific EAA conformance records.

04Directive EU 2016/2102 + Implementing Decision (EU) 2018/1523

Web Accessibility Directive

Directive EU 2016/2102 establishes the public-sector body web-accessibility regime; this statement is published per the template in Implementing Decision (EU) 2018/1523 Annex.

Non-accessible content · WAD § 4

Specific items that do not yet conform — with reason, alternative, and target date.

Every residual is attached to its WCAG success criterion, the technical reason, the equivalent access path available today, and the target close date. Closure is tracked in the public roadmap.

  1. 01

    Inline prose links rely on colour alone (5 instances on 5 routes)

    WCAG 2.2 SC 1.4.1 Use of Color
    Reason
    Inline links inside paragraph text in a small number of legacy components still rely on the brand colour as the only visual cue.
    Alternative
    All such links remain reachable via keyboard and announced by screen readers; users can identify them by Tab focus or by the underlying URL exposed in the address bar on hover.
    Target close
    2026-07
  2. 02

    Residual contrast violations on alpha-blended decorative surfaces (93 nodes)

    WCAG 2.2 SC 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum)
    Reason
    A small number of decorative captions, alpha-blended brand backgrounds, and zinc-on-dark utilities remain below the 4.5:1 threshold after the brand-colour migration. None affect primary CTAs, body text, or navigation.
    Alternative
    Equivalent information is available in the surrounding visible text or in the page heading hierarchy; affected captions are short reading-experience sugar, not navigational targets.
    Target close
    2026-08
  3. 03

    Invalid <dl> structures in eight components (19 nodes)

    WCAG 2.2 SC 1.3.1 Info and Relationships
    Reason
    Eight components emit <dl> elements with <dt> / <dd> children outside the strict HTML grouping pattern that the axe definition-list rule expects.
    Alternative
    Content is otherwise correctly grouped via headings and visible text; screen readers announce the items as a list.
    Target close
    2026-07
  4. 04

    Heading order jumps on seven routes (h2 → h4)

    WCAG 2.2 SC 2.4.6 Headings and Labels
    Reason
    Seven routes carry an h3 card section without an intermediate h2 parent, producing an h2→h4 jump.
    Alternative
    The visible page hierarchy and route page-title are still meaningful; screen-reader heading navigation may skip a level on these specific routes.
    Target close
    2026-07
  5. 05

    Three /dossiers/* print-A4 routes do not reflow at 320 CSS px

    WCAG 2.2 SC 1.4.10 Reflow
    Reason
    The /dossiers/public-sector, /dossiers/horizon, and /dossiers/governance routes are deliberately rendered as A4 print artefacts for procurement officers reviewing on desktop.
    Alternative
    Each dossier has a fully-responsive web equivalent at /resources/dossiers/<slug> that reflows correctly at 320 CSS px and below. The print versions are exempt under SC 1.4.10's "essential 2D layout" provision.
    Target close
    Documented exemption — no remediation planned
  6. 06

    Externally-supplied PDFs are not yet PDF/UA-tagged (3 of 16 PDFs)

    EN 301 549 Clause 10 (Non-web documents)
    Reason
    Three externally-supplied PDFs (annual-report-2025, presentation-2026, livresq-companion-google-en) were produced through third-party tooling that did not emit a tagged structure tree.
    Alternative
    All seven generator-emitted dossier PDFs are PDF/UA-tagged. The three external PDFs will be reissued in tagged form; meanwhile screen-reader users can request an HTML equivalent at accessibility@ascendia.eu.
    Target close
    2026-09

Preparation of this statement · WAD § 5

How this statement was prepared.

Method

Self-assessment combining (a) automated runtime audit (axe-core 4.10 against all 69 prerendered routes), (b) static-analysis lint (ESLint jsx-a11y), (c) Phase 5 automated harness (reflow, forced-colours, tab-order, accessible-name dump on top-20 routes), (d) image alt-text and PDF-tagging gates, and (e) a manual-test checklist against six AT combinations (NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver, TalkBack, Voice Control, Forced Colours).

Statement first published

2026-05-02

Last reviewed

2026-05-02. Next scheduled review: post-major-release or 2027-05-02 (annual), whichever comes first.

Feedback and contact · WAD § 6

Reporting an accessibility barrier.

Anyone encountering an accessibility barrier on Ascendia.eu can email accessibility@ascendia.eu with the URL, the assistive technology used, and a short description. The mailbox forwards to the Compliance & Governance desk lead and the Data Protection Officer. Acknowledgement is published at 5 working days; remediation cadence is reported back to the requestor.

For data-rights-adjacent accessibility issues, write to dpo@ascendia.eu.

Enforcement procedure · WAD § 7

If you are dissatisfied with the response to your accessibility report, you may escalate to your relevant national WAD enforcement body. For Romania (Ascendia's seat under EU procurement rules), the contact is the Autoritatea pentru Digitalizarea României (ADR — Romanian Authority for Digitalization), per the WAD Implementing Decision (EU) 2018/1523. Other member-state enforcement bodies are listed in the European Commission's WAD enforcement registry.

accessibility@ascendia.eu

Conformance evidence

VPAT 2.5 EU INT, EN 301 549 conformance declaration, and the public accessibility roadmap are returned on written request to accessibility@ascendia.eu.

Part of Accessibility

Microsoft AI for Accessibility Hall of Fame, EAA 2025 alignment, EN 301 549 readiness.

Open the Accessibility pillar — Microsoft Hall of Fame, EAA 2025, EN 301 549

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