Brussels, 26/01/2004 (Agence Europe) - EUROPA, the EU's multilingual internet site, is getting a fundamental face-lift in 2004 starting with a new-look home page launched on 23 January. The European Commission, which manages EUROPA, is making a major effort to capture new audiences, and especially to attract young people. By the end of March 2004, the emerging new EUROPA will offer many new services in a much more user-friendly way. It will feature animated graphs, interactive games, simpler navigation and an improved search function. The languages of the ten new EU countries will gradually be added . Most of the remaining planned changes will be in place by summer 2004.
Increasingly, people are interested in the European Union. Yet, according to opinion polls, 72% of the EU's citizens know little or nothing about it. The new-look EUROPA targets this information gap. People visiting the site in 2004 will find witty, animated graphs presenting basic facts and figures about the EU, and interactive games that make it fun to learn about Europe's history and peoples. From the new home page they can easily access simple and informative booklets, maps and other educational material, or dig deeper for more detailed information if they want it. EU citizens wanting to study, work or retire in another EU country will be guided to very practical information about their rights and about the procedures to follow. The traditional users of EUROPA - businesses, government departments, regional and local authorities, NGOs, universities and the media - will find the information they want presented by topic, with easier access to official documents as well as the interactive services provided by each individual institution. The whole operation will be supported by the considerable improvement in EUROPA's search facility - a service that is, at present, as the Commission itself comments “rightly criticised by many users”.