www.eutrio.be – Communications nerve centre for the duration of the Belgian Presidency of the EU
Prime Minister Yves Leterme, Minister of Foreign Affairs Steven Vanackere and State Secretary for European Affairs Olivier Chastel launch official website for the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the European Union www.eutrio.be
On 25 June 2010, Prime Minister Yves Leterme, Minister of Foreign Affairs Steven Vanackere and State Secretary for European Affairs Olivier Chastel launched eutrio.be, the official website for the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The website will be the nerve centre for communications throughout the Belgian EU presidency and the official source of all information. It is a practical, fast and dynamic tool gathering data from all levels of Belgian government. The website also contains contributions from partners of the presidency, such as the Council, the European Commission and the European Parliament.
Eutrio.be is designed to satisfy the requirements of three target audiences: the press, people who are professionally involved with the presidency and the general public. Specific functions have been designed for each of these groups. The press serves as a link between the European Union and the general public and has direct access to a simple tool that is easy to use. The hundreds of representatives taking part in the forums and meetings can refer to the website’s News and Calendar sections . Members of the public in Belgium, Europe and third countries constitute an important target group and have a wide range of information available to them, including photos, latest news about the EU and a calendar of cultural activities. So a great effort has been made to ensire that all visitors have access to a wealth of information.
Specific functions have been developed for each target group. Journalists have direct access to official documents and press releases issued by the EU presidency, along with multimedia files. Eutrio.be also presents the full calendar of activities related to the presidency, including cultural events as well as all the official meetings.
Eutrio.be is a full-service multimedia centre, publishing press releases, photos, videos and live broadcasts of press conferences and seminars. RSS feeds, text message alerts from the Council, high resolution for multimedia and the possibility of exporting calendars increase the ease of use. Journalists also have a separate Press Services section, affording access to news, documents and media files. Accreditation also takes place via the website.
Belgium ihas an expansive ‘shop window’, with its different levels of government and wealth of culture, and eutrio.be also sets out to involve ordinary citizens in the EU presidency. So as well as providing background information about the presidency, eutrio.be also publishes information about Europe, and Belgium, the website’s host Member State.
The mobile version of Eutrio means the website can be consulted anywhere, anytime. The News and Calendar sections can be consulted via smartphones, PDAs or mobiles phones. The activities of ministers and their staff can also be closely monitored onTwitter. Moreover, the website’s Share this function can be used to share or re-use information on social networking sites, Twitter and via bookmarks.
Sustainability and re-usability are two important values of the Belgian EU Presidency that also apply for eutrio.be. The website was therefore designed using the open-source content-management system Drupal, the source code of which will be be made available to other federal governments and EU Member States. In fact, the website has been designed as a communication platform, which other websites can use to obtain photos, audio and video files during the Belgian Presidency.
The website was jointly produced by the FPS Chancellery of the Prime Minister, the FPS Foreign Affairs, the FPS Information and Communication Technology, and Belgium’s Communities and Regions.
