Europe claims place for .eu in cyberspace 

Tuesday March 26, 2002

European integration moved into cyberspace yesterday, challenging national pride by enabling citizens and businesses to have .eu websites. Taking a step which could undermine existing domain names such as .uk or .fr, telecoms ministers gave their final approval to an ambitious project designed to encourage e-commerce within and beyond the single market. 

"The introduction of a new .eu internet domain will create a truly European identity in cyberspace for EU internet users," the delighted enterprise commissioner, Erkki Liikanen, said after talks in Brussels. 

The decision crowns months of negotiations between the internet community, the 15 EU member states and the European parliament which will lead to the creation of an organisation to manage and police the new domain. 

It will complement the existing family of "country-code" or national top level domains in the EU, such as .uk, .de, .fr, .es, as well as "generic" top level domains such as .com and .org. 

At present the websites of EU institutions use .int, which is reserved for inter-governmental treaty bodies such as Nato and the United Nations. 

But .int is based in Los Angeles, and it cannot be used by businesses or cross-border interest groups which want to be clearly identified as European. Many Brussels-based organisations using the Belgian .be would like to make the switch. 

More details at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,674007,00.html

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