According to the European Commission, firms will be able to register their names of choice by early December and become part of "a real European identity in cyberspace".
"There are plenty of signs of interest," said Pierre Geoffroy, director of France's One2net, which has around 1,000 clients using the ".fr" domain name.
Pascal Muche of Proximedia, with around 8,500 clients in Belgium using the ".be" suffix, estimated that almost 25 percent of them would switch to ".eu".
The project dates back to the 1990s but has taken several years to realize.
Once it comes into effect, those with product brands and public institutions will have a two-month "sunrise" period in which to register their names.
In the two months that follow, companies, non-brand names or even art works will be accepted. Individuals will have to wait until the second quarter of 2006 before trying to get access to their veritable European piece of the Net.
Since June, Eurid, the consortium charged by the EU's executive arm to supervise the domain name until 2010, has accredited around 400 registry offices in several countries.
For the most impatient some of the offices are accepting pre-registrations for companies anxious to ensure that their name of choice is not taken.
Nothing is assured, however. There may be competition between the offices. If several companies, whether small or large, register the name "Hermes", there is little to guarantee that the "real" brand will be allocated "hermes.eu".
Eurid acknowledges that, "we don't know what's going to happen. It will be the first among all those to have registered, even if it's only by a fraction of a second ..."
Those out of luck will find it a difficult pill to swallow, according to Benjamin Gevers from Gevers and Partners.
Nevertheless, he agrees with the first in, first served policy because "the company that is the oldest is not necessarily the biggest and vice-versa".
Eurid expects things to move quickly and does not rule out receiving 1 million ".eu" registrations in the first year, given that there are around 9 million users for ".de" in Germany and 6 million for ".uk" in Britain.
"I think its going to be a big hit with big companies that have already taken steps to protect their brands," said Geoffroy, but he added that small- and medium-sized enterprises "do not appear convinced".
Eric Lantonnet, head of Namebay, said that he thinks that firms without a ".com" domain will be "very tempted by '.eu' so they can present themselves as being part of a much bigger market" than their national ones.
In the long run, said Geoffroy, "the '.eu' name could become a competitor for '.com' because many companies involved in the export sector will want to look like a European player".
For Lantonnet one problem remains. "We don't know if its going to go the same way as '.com' or if it will be like '.info' or '.biz'," which never really took off.
© 2005 Agence France-Presse
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