The European Commission has confirmed the appointment of
a Belgian-led consortium called Eurid to manage the .eu top-level
domain.
The domain will be running by the end of the year, and it will
sit alongside generic domains such as .com and .info and country
codes such as .fr and .uk in the internet address space.
Erkki Liikanen, European commissioner responsible for enterprise
and information society, said that once the registry is fully
operational, businesses, organisations and citizens in the European
Union will be able to register their domain names within the .eu
domain name.
"I believe that the creation of the .eu top-level domain will
give European citizens and businesses the possibility to acquire a
European identity on the internet," he said.
The commission will now conclude a contract with Eurid and then
appropriate steps will be taken with the Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) for the inclusion of .eu in the
global internet Domain Name System.
At the same time, the commission will establish public policy
rules to deal with issues such as speculative and abusive
registrations of domain names, intellectual property and other
rights, issues of language and geographical concepts and the
extra-judicial settlement of conflicts.
Some further steps have to be taken before .eu domain names can
be registered. The commission will contact Icann so that the .eu
top-level domain is included in the root zone file.
Eurid will have to accredit registrars, which will manage the
registration of domain names for the benefit of end users under
competitive market rules.
Registrations will take place in a phased manner to ensure
appropriate registration opportunities for the holders of prior
rights.
The commission said Eurid will be based in Brussels.