The Commission is required to submit a report on the implementation, functioning and effectiveness of the .eu domain to the European Parliament and the Council every two years.

In this latest Report, the Commission notes that with 3.7 million registered .eu domain names in April 2021, the .eu domain is the eighth largest ccTLD worldwide. In line with the global and European domain name market, the growth of .eu has flattened out. Negative growth, due to the continued saturation and consolidation of the domain name market and the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, was compensated by the rise of demand for domain names during the COVID-19 pandemic, driven by organisations and companies switching to an online presence.

Over the period covered, the .eu Registry allowed EU citizens to register a .eu domain name independently of their place of residence. It expanded European linguistic diversity and multilingualism across the .eu domain by launching .ευ, marking completion of the efforts to support all EU non-Latin scripts in the .eu TLD.

The Report says that the .eu Registry continued to work on ensuring a trustworthy .eu environment by launching the Abuse Prevention Early Warning System (APEWS), the Know-Your-Customer project (KYC), and the registrar lock service in 2020. It also conducted systematic checks on COVID-19 related domain name registrations during the pandemic.

Partnerships were strengthened with law enforcement and other public authorities at both national and European levels in the fight against illegal activities involving .eu domain names. In 2021, the .eu Registry and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) launched a joint Action Plan to combat abusive and speculative domain name registrations.

Overall, the Report states that the .eu Registry maintained a highly resilient and robust technical infrastructure, ensuring a 100% availability of the .eu domain, even during the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack on the .eu Registry’s platforms and services in spring 2020.

The Report concludes that the .eu domain continues to function in an effective and financially healthy manner, facilitating access to the Digital Single Market, allowing Europeans to display their European identity online, supporting the online presence of SMEs, and promoting multilingualism. In the Commission’s view, the .eu domain has the potential to strengthen further its position as the domain of choice for EU citizens and businesses in Europe and globally. To read the Report in full, click here.