01. Europa domain and subdomains overview

The Europa domain

The Europa domain (or "Europa") refers to the second level domain europa.eu. It belongs to the '.eu' top level domain established by Regulation EC 733/2002 and managed by DG Communication on behalf of all EU institutions.

Since 2005, the Europa domain has been used by the EU institutions for their online communications and groups websites from all EU institutions.

Benefits of using the europa.eu domain:

• helps users to understand that they are visiting an authentic EU website
• in the context of disinformation, the web address is a guarantee of trustworthiness and reliability
• the legal standards applied on Europa guarantee that the web content respects the EU’s own data protection and accessibility rules
• the security standards required by the European Commission's IT department protect the web content 

Subdomains

EU institutions, bodies and agencies use 3rd level domains under europa.eu.

Rules

• Following a decision of the Secretaries General (Annexe 2 - In French only - PDF) of all EU institutions:
  
  • all websites of EU institutions, bodies and agencies (European Parliament, European Commission, Council, Court of Justice...) are using the 'europa.eu' domain 
  • 3rd level domains are mainly allocated to EU institutions, bodies and agencies. For example: ec.europa.eu for European Commission, europarl.europa.eu for European Parliament
    • in certain cases, subject to the approval of the Inter-institutional Online Communication Committee (IOCC) - EU login required), 3rd level domains can also be allocated to the following types of site:
      1.  Inter-institutional cooperation entities or services.
      2.  Sites providing access to the information and services of an official programme.
      3.  Sites providing access to a service or database with a well-established brand name.
      4.  Sites requiring high visibility for promotional purposes.

• • 4th level domains are managed by the owner of the 3rd level domain. EU branded 3rd level domains are owned by IOCC and managed by COMM Europa Management. Any new 4th level domain needs to be approved by DG COMM. 
• Specifically for the European Commission
  • all Commission websites must be hosted on europa.eu. (ref: CCSC, Minutes, November 2018 - Corporate Management Board, Minutes, January 2019 - CCSC, Minutes, June 2019 - EUlogin required)
  • all Commission websites must respect the rules and guidelines as published on the Europa Web Guide.

To check which category your website belongs to within the EC branded web presence or EU branded web presence, please see below.

EC branded web presence

• Core websites
• Standardised websites
• Harmonised websites

EU branded web presence

• Interinstitutional website
• Standardised websites (under development)
• Harmonised websites (under development)

Procedures

Please see:

• Request procedure for domains and sites names - Restricted
• Request procedure for revamps and new websites - Restricted

Resources

Choosing a second level domain name for the European Union's websites -  (In French only - 122.9 KB - PDF)

Rules and procedures on assigning website addresses in the .eu domain - (In French only - 122.9 KB - PDF)

Europa high level governance (Corporate Communication Steering Committee - 6 September 2019 - 330 KB - PDF)

Contact and support

If you require further assistance, please contact:

Comm Europa Management

European Commission
DG Communication 
Unit B.3 
Europa Web Communication