Policy page

Purpose

An approach to page layout developed to help communicate on action(s) the European Commission is taking on a specific issue.

About the policy page template

All websites containing policy content are standardised websites, which must be published on the corporate Europa Web Publishing Platform (EWPP). 

The policy template is a way to organise and group all information surrounding a set of Commission actions, following the analysis of a problem.

When to use this template

Use the Policy template to provide a hub that links to more detailed content.

When to consider something else

Legislation. Don’t use the Policy template to describe legislation related to the policy. 

What to include

A policy page should include the following sections:

• Identification: a summary that includes: the policy period, source policy, connected Commission priorities, the version of the policy.
   
• Description: a short text overview that answers the questions:
  • what is this policy?
  • why is it needed?
  • what is the problem the policy is trying to address?
  • what is the background to this policy?
     
• Objectives: this section answers questions about the aims and targets of the policy:
  • what is the objective?
  • where did the objective come from?
  • why is the objective important? 
  • what are the expected results?
  • what is the timeframe?
     
•  Supporting policies:
  • covers related policies
• Actions: can include links to child pages on one or more of the following subjects:
  • Funding
  • Legislation
  • Consultation and cooperation 
  • Raising awareness
  • Training
  • National policy coordination
  • Resources
     
• Outcome: includes the following sub-sections, with brief descriptions, each linking to a child page:
  • Result(s)
  • Monitoring
  • Evaluation
     
• Policy timeline
   
• Events (related)
   
• News (related)
   
• Stakeholders
   
• Contact

Dos

Do follow the detailed content specifications closely. That way users experience a consistent presentation of the Commission's actions across sites.

Do tag content as described in the content guidelines (EU Login required). This will enable your policy to show up in search results and to appear on pool pages with related policies.

Don'ts

Don't offer text-heavy content. Use your policy page as a hub that lets users navigate to more detailed information.

Don't use links with images as the sole content of your page.

Don't add an introduction.

Usability guidance

Keep the text brief. Don’t try to include lengthy text. Descriptions should not exceed 400 characters. If you need more space, move your content to a child page and link to it.

Content type

Use the landing page (EU Login required) content type for this template. 

Remove unnecessary elements. Do not create extra content just to fill the template. You can remove individual sections (such as the event block) or sub-sections from the template as you implement it. This version gives you a broad idea of the number of things your policy page could include. But never make a page more complex than you need to.

See component-specific guidance below. For guidance on specific components, see the pages for the individual components.