WRITTEN QUESTION E-1315/01

by Theresa Villiers (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(3 May 2001)

Subject: .EU domain name

1. Is it true that there is currently no charter or document for .EU domain name, defining the purpose and reasoning behind this ambitious project? If this is true, how does the Commission propose to regulate an entity without declaring the purpose and aims of the regulation?

2. The ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) had originally indicated that, under the right circumstances, it would delegate the .EU name to the European Commission. Is this still the case?

3. Why does the Commission want to control those aspects of .EU domain name policy which are normally controlled by the stakeholders in the Internet community in line with the generally accepted Internet conventions expressed in RFC 1591?

4. The Interim steering group of the EU consultation EC-POP report on .EU proposed that the .EU name should be structured in line with RFC 1951. Why does the Regulation make no mention of this fundamental precept?

5. Why does Article 3(b) require various levels of residency within the European Community for users of the .EU domain name? Existing ccTLDs (Country Code Top Level Domain Name) such as .fr or .uk indicate the area in which an enterprise does business or where the enterprise wishes to be seen to do business. What benefits does the residency element of the proposed domain name have for users?

6. The letters .EU stand for Europe, a geographical area including Switzerland, Norway, Turkey, Latvia, Estonia and so on. Why does the Regulation seek to limit the use of these letters to the EU, and is there any real benefit in such a limitation? Have any governments of non-EU countries been consulted on this matter?

7. The Commission has had no previous experience of managing an internet domain, nor does it seem prepared for the task. Has the Commission considered CENTR, the Council of European national Top Level Domain Registries, as a possible custodian of the .EU domain name?

Answer given by Mr Liikanen on behalf of the Commission

(31 July 2001)

1. The Explanatory Memorandum annexed to the Proposal for a Regulation of the Parliament and of the Council on the implementation of the Internet Top Level Domain .EU(1) refers to two documents which discuss extensively the purpose and reasoning of the proposal. First, it refers to the Communication of the Commission of 5 July 2000 on the results of the public consultation on the creation of EU Internet Top Level Domain(2). It also refers to theReport of the Interim Steering Group (ISG) whose purpose is briefly explained by a quote from the report in the footnote(3).

2. As confirmed by a Recital in the proposal, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Board has adopted a resolution that would permit ICANN to delegate the Community top-level domain (TLD) code at the appropriate time. On 24 April 2001, the Commission and the Member States in the Internet Informal Group met with the Chief Executive of ICANN and other senior staff. They confirmed their support for this initiative.

3. The Commission's intention is to ensure as large as possible stakeholder participation to the shaping of the registration policy. The Commission's proposal indicates that those policies which are matters of public policy will be decided according to comitology procedure. Subject to certain safeguards, such as the respect of the applicable Community and national laws, the detailed registration policy for the implementation of the .EU will according to the Commission's proposal be determined by the Registry in consultation with the Commission and other interested parties and in accordance with the contract to be entered into between the Commission and the Registry.

4. The Commission is aware of and recognises the importance of RFC 1591(4) as updated and amended by the ICANN ICP-1 document(5) and the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) principles for Country code top level domain (ccTLD) Registries(6). For legal and political reasons the draft Regulation refers sparingly to Internet assigned numbers Authority (IANA) and ICANN documents as they emanate from private entities. However, with regard to the contract between the Registry and ICANN Article 2.4 refers to the GAC principles that refer in turn to RFC 1591.

5. The residency element was introduced to support the principle that there should be a tangible relationship between the principal location of the entity concerned and the territorial scope of the Registry and the Commission considered that basic principles of European Internal Market Law should be applied i.a. the criteria mentioned in Article 48 (ex-Article 58) of the EC Treaty.

6. As a proposed ccTLD, the code EU is drawn from the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) 3166 Standard of two letter codes for the representation of names of countries. In that standard, EU has been reserved as the code representing the name of the Union(7). Representatives of the governments of European Economic Area (EEA) and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries have contacted the Commission with a view to obtaining an enlargement of the eligibility criteria in their favour(8).

7. The Commission does not intend to manage the .EU Internet Top Level Domain. The Commission's proposal clearly indicates that the intention is to ensure that a Registry will be entrusted with the task to organise, administer and manage the .EU TLD. This was also made

clear in the initial Commission working paper(9) and it further appeared from the replies to the ensuing public consultation in early 2000(10). The Commission's Communications and the ISG Report envisaged that the Registry would be a private not-for-profit self-regulating entity operating in the public interest. The Registry will be designated by open and transparent procedures.

(1) OJ C 96 E, 27.3.2001.

(2) COM(2000) 421 final.

(3) Meanwhile, as announced in the July 2000 Communication, the Commission and the Internet community in Europe have moved forward with detailed technical and policy preparations. This has been done in the context of the existing European Community Panel of Participants (EC-POP) who have constituted an Interim Steering Group (ISG) that worked on this question during May-October 2000. A report on their work is available and has been published for comment, (http://www.ec-pop.org/1009prop/index.htm). Indeed, the Community has an interest in benefiting from the available expertise among those groups most actively participating in the development of the Internet in Europe. For that reason, particular weight is attached to the work of the Interim Steering Group, including for example, its analysis of the eventual operational and technical characteristics of the registry, contractual relationships between the Commission and the registry organisation and the options for the form that organisation could take. The ISG members recognise that their work in this area was of an advisory nature.

(4) http://www.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1591.txt.

(5) http://www.iana.org/cctld/icp1.htm.

(6) http://www.icann.org/committees/gac/gac-cctldprinciples-23feb00.htm.

(7) The three letter code has also been standardised by ISO to represent the name of the Euro currency.

(8) In the case of several existing ccTLD Registries, including those in the Union, eligibility requirements have recently been progressively relaxed, to include non-residents. The Parliament has recently asked the Commission to conduct a review of the national measures in this regard. (European parliament Resolution A5-0063/2001 of 15 March 2001, Clauses 18 and 19).

(9) http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/information_society/policy/internet/workingpaper_en.htm.

(10) http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/information_society/policy/internet/com2000421_en.htm.