Council of the European Union website revamp, May 2004

The Council's website at http://ue.eu.int has had a complete revamp. The new design without frames is intended to make it more user friendly as well as enabling the support of the additional languages following enlargement. Work on the revised structure has been going on for some time but now that it is live it will take regular users a little while to re-orientate and find the access routes to the areas they use frequently. However this should be compensated for by the additional functionality of the new site.

At first glance the main navigation links in the top menu bar do not stand out but once users are familiar with the layout this should become easier. The home page offers the latest news on the left of the screen; in the centre, a welcome message and links to the pages of Javier Solana, Secretary General of the EU and High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, and to the site of the Irish Presidency; and on the right links to areas of special focus. Currently the latter comprise the upcoming European Council of 17-18 June, enlargement, the europaquiz, IGC and the fight against terrorism. Bits of the site at lower level pages are only available in French but this will no doubt change as the site is further developed.

The top menu bar offers seven navigation links: Press, Council, Policies, IGC, Contacts, Documents and Javier Solana. Clicking on the link leads to the main page for that area. Alternatively pointing at it brings up the sub-headings which can be selected - under Press, for example, are press releases, meetings and events, audiovisual, information for the media, documents and contacts. It is under meetings and events that details of agendas, calendars and public debates will be found.

One of the aims of the re-design was to create a document centre directly accessible from the main menu bar and there is indeed a link entitled Documents. However it appears to lead only to the Council's Register while in contrast the sub-heading Documents under the Press section leads to a fuller range of options, which includes, as well as the register, searchable databases of the Council's press releases and of documents relating to Javier Solana. In fact the home page reached by clicking directly on the Documents heading gives access to a huge array of documents presented in a structured format and organised in some areas by date, going as far back as 1993 in some cases. At the top of the screen is the option of searching for documents by selecting a domain but when tested this feature was unstable.

Returning to the matter of the Council press releases and the searchable database accessible via the Press heading, these press releases have been searchable for years in the RAPID database but there was some question over how frequently the information was added, so having searchable access on the Council site would seem to be beneficial. However on investigation it appears that the Council updates its own database less frequently than it supplies material to RAPID so we have another example of duplication without added benefit. It is to be hoped that the situation will change once the new site has bedded down. Currently the search template allows selection of language (excluding at present the new member states' languages), date and city from drop down menus, in combination with title, full text, official number or CFSP number fields.

The IGC section is another area which now includes a search function in addition to the browse option. As well as free text searching, you can limit the results by type of document such as documents from the delegations or documents from the Presidency.

There is a wealth of information on the Council site. The revamped version offers a more up to date look but appears still to have some teething problems. However once these have been resolved and users become more familiar with finding their way around it, the improved search options should make it quicker and easier to track the information required.