As anticipated in July, DG COMM is finalising the merge of the homepages of the information and political sites and the development of the global banner. As these two projects will impact all Commission websites, we wish to provide you with further instructions on how to proceed in order to ensure consistency throughout the Commission web presence.
We rely on your cooperation to ensure that the changes are applied on all European Commission sites, and not only the ones managed by DG COMM.

Please read the planning below and note that actions to be taken by individual DGs are detailed in the corresponding wiki pages.

1. Merge of the homepages of the information and political sites

On 3 September the homepages of the information and political sites of the Commission will be merged into one, with the following URL: https://ec.europa.eu/info/index_en.

Shortly after the release, we will implement automatic redirects to the new homepage from the following links:

• Language selection page on https://ec.europa.eu
• https://ec.europa.eu/commission/
• https://ec.europa.eu/commission/index_en (all language versions)

DG COMM will update the sites managed centrally. On other sites, the necessary changes (e.g. removal of the site switcher on top, removal of double links in the footer …) will depend on the set up, and will have to be implemented manually by the site owner.

In order to proceed with the updates, please follow the instructions detailed on this wiki page.

There you can find the list of the elements that require changes, as well as instructions on how to implement them. If you have any questions after reading the instructions, don’t hesitate to get back to us via COMM EUROPA MANAGEMENT.

Regarding the timeline, please keep in mind that no changes are to be done before the 4th of September, once the merged home page has been deployed. We kindly ask you to implement the changes before the end of October.

2. Global Banner (GLOBAN)

As you already know, the Global Banner component has been developed to help identify official websites of the European Institutions. The testing period of the new component (both internal and inter-institutional) has been completed and the results are positive. We can now proceed to add the Global Banner to all European Commission websites.

As above, DG COMM will take care of the sites managed centrally but we need your help to make sure that all official Commission sites can be identified as authentic by our users.

You can find the instructions on how to integrate the Global Banner into your website on this wiki page. If you have any questions after reading the instructions, don’t hesitate to get back to us via COMM EUROPA MANAGEMENT.

Again, please keep in mind that no changes are to be done before the 4th of September. We kindly ask you to implement the changes before the end of October.

UPDATE ON RECENT CHANGES

STYLE
Recently the Commission core sites (Info site, Political site, Commissioners and BRP) have undergone updates in terms of design and style (typography and spacing) in order to align the current design to the European Components Library (ECL).

This is a major undertaking so you might notice some spacing issues on your website (e.g. excessive space between content). If this is the case, please let us know by writing to COMM EUROPA MANAGEMENT.

SITE FOOTER
The core sites footer has been updated to include the class landing pages and a bit of extra information.