MEPs seek more hits from revamped website

By Tim King

Date: 08/09/05

The European Parliament is to relaunch its website on Tuesday (13 September) after an overhaul aimed at improving contact with Europe's voters.

The success of the venture will be closely watched by the European Commission and the Council of Ministers, which are also concerned to improve their use of the internet.

The redesign followed demands from MEPs to improve the website and make it "more topical, accessible, welcoming, attractive and more original".

The relaunch, billed as "457 million people at one address", will see a greater quantity of material made available in the 20 languages of the EU and the introduction of a channel dedicated to 'webstreaming', relaying the debates and committee meetings of the Parliament live over the net.

Editorially, the site has been split into five areas. Three areas will necessarily change frequently: news, activities (which includes reports and debates) and the webstreaming channel EPLive. There are two providing contextual information, one devoted to the institution of the Parliament and the other to MEPs. The latter area will offer links to the work MEPs have done, including questions put to the Commission, resolutions and reports drawn up and speeches made.

Within each of these five areas, information is organised in three layers - headlines, in detail and archives - according to perceptions of the probable audience of citizens, specialised users and academics.

Across the five areas, the headlines layer will be available in all 20 languages. There may be some content specific to a particular language if, for example, there is a topic of special interest to one nationality.

In the expert and archive areas, the range of material available in all 20 languages will be reduced.

Parliament's President Josep Borrell will take part in a two-day programme of discussions next week (13-14 September) on the use of the Internet in government and politics.

Borrell, who described the website as spectacular, said part of the task of making the Parliament's work accessible was to provide context and explanation.

"There is no point in putting a report adopted in plenary online if no effort is made to explain it," he said.

The redesign was the work of a team of 37 staff, more than half of them working on temporary contracts.

Ennio Pinton, the Parliament's head of webpublishing, said he would be monitoring the pattern of use of the website, to judge its success.

Even as the site is launched, as www.europarl.eu.int, it is already clear that the address will be changed when the .eu domain names comes into effect next year. The various addresses of the EU institutions will be realigned so that they end .europa.eu.

Article reports on the re-launching of the European Parliament's website on 13 September 2005 after an overhaul aimed at improving contact with Europe's voters. The redesign which was the work of a team of 37 staff, followed demands from MEPs to improve the website and make it 'more topical, accessible, welcoming, attractive and more original'.

European Parliament: Homepage http://www.europarl.eu.int

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