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The decision to approve the new top-level domain was made by the EU's Council of Telecommunications Ministers on Tuesday. The adoption of the regulation follows the approval of the European Parliament in February, under the co-decision procedure.
"The adoption of the .eu regulation paves the way for EU Internet users, for the first time, to be able to have pan-European domain names and e-mail addresses," said European Commissioner Erkki Liikanen. He said the new domain will help encourage European e-commerce and should also help raise awareness of the European 'brand' on the Internet.
After months of discussions with the European Internet community, the Member States and the European Parliament, the adoption of the regulation will allow the Commission to take the necessary steps to put the infrastructure for .eu in place.
These measures include the selection of a private, non-profit organisation to manage the .eu top-level domain, and the definition of rules to safeguard certain public policy issues.
The European Commission proposed the introduction of '.eu' as a key element in the strategy to increase the use of the Internet in Europe, one of the main objectives of the eEurope 2002 Action Plan that was launched at the Lisbon Summit in March 2000.
A number of organisations have expressed interest in running the new top-level domain including Eureg of France.
In Ireland the IEDR has put together a pan-European consortium in a bid to run the .eu domain as a not-for-profit organisation. The bid vehicle is currently named Europoc Ltd. and is incorporated in Ireland. A key component of this bid is the basis that each member state would be represented. Another bid has been put forward by a group of Irish organisations including Deloitte & Touche.
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