The 'Europa' website - "the official face of the European Union online," according to the European Commission – is the centrepiece of the Union's Internet-based information infrastructure.
However, since Europa's launch in 1995, the website has "evolved more or less organically without much coordination," officials admitted in the Commission's weekly internal newsletter En Direct, published last week.
As a result, officials now admit "there is too much information and it is hard to know where to start looking".
Ylva Tiveus, a director at the Commission's communication department (DG COMM), said Europa remains "very confusing for outsiders" and "does not help to improve the transparency of the European institutions".
Tiveus said an overhaul of the web portal is "vital" if Europa is to "meet the expectations and needs" of European citizens and satisfy "today's and tomorrow's standards" for a large official website.
It is time for the EU executive's decision-makers to "put our house in order," the official concluded.
A source close to the Commission told EurActiv that the EU executive has privately acknowledged for some time that "its web resources are somewhat inadequate in this day and age".
The goal of this revamp, the source said, is to drag Europa's "lethargic and overly complicated structure out of a bureaucratic mindset and into the mindset of a 21st century citizen looking to get the most out of the 'gateway to the EU'".
No guarantee other Commission DGs will follow
In order to completely reshape the mammoth website, since 2007 the Commission has been organising focus groups, carrying out user surveys and benchmarking Europa against other sites, according to Bruno Fetelian, head of unit at the EU executive's DG COMM.
The new site will have "a simpler, more uniform layout, with content presented in a more logical way," and represents the first step on the road towards a "more consistent corporate identity throughout" the Europa website family.
However, despite the new site's aim to be more user-friendly, it remains to be seen how many EU institutions will take on board its recommendations and follow suit.
While the entire DG COMM website will be unveiled in the new format later this month, with inter-institutional pages following suit after the summer, COMM officials acknowledged that they have "no real power" over the websites of other individual Commission DGs.
"We hope that they will follow our example and make changes soon," they said.
