Brussels, 10/01/2008 (Agence Europe) - As announced by the European Commission in its follow-up document to the White Paper on a European communication policy (EUROPE 9514), the development of the EUROPA portal towards the “second generation” internet is on the way. At the end of December, the Commission outlined the strategy it wanted to implement for increasing public access to new electronic communication tools: blogs, continued information threads, podcasts, interactive sites etc. An audiovisual strategy, evolving from the one on the internet is expected for the spring.
The Commission will proceed to an internal reshuffle in the management of EUROPA, by appointing, in particular, an editor-in-chief, who will ensure editorial, linguistic and graphic consistency of the information portal. Information published will be presented more from the user's point of view. Management and follow-up of discussion forums will be improved. For example, the new version of the “Debate Europe” site will enable genuine interactivity between participants in debates focusing on Commission communication priorities. The Commission will also attempt to develop a research tool for EUROPA users, even if it does not appear to believe in it that much, given the complexity of such an exercise. In an effort to increase EU visibility on the internet, it will launch a study to identify the main sites focusing on European subjects, in view of concluding network implementation agreements with them. EUROPA is managed by the Commission and covers all the institutions and Community agencies. It contains more than six million documents and is consulted every day by 500,000 surfers. The Commission has criticised the fact that EUROPA is, however, “unknown by the majority of Union citizens”. (M.B)