<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div>[ Apologies if you receive this message multiple times ]<br><br></div>Dear all,<br><br></div>you
might be interested to read the recent blog post of Neelie Kroes,
Vice-President of the European Commission and member of the High-Level
Multistakeholder Committee of NETmundial, available at
<a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/kroes/en/content/my-thoughts-netmundial-and-future-internet-governance">https://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/kroes/en/content/my-thoughts-netmundial-and-future-internet-governance</a>
and reproduced below.<br><br><h1 class="" id="page-title">
My thoughts on NETmundial and the Future of Internet Governance </h1>
<div class="">
</div><span content="2014-04-11T17:30:22+02:00" rel="sioc:has_creator">Published by <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/kroes/en/users/neelie-kroes" title="View user profile." class="">Neelie KROES</a> on Friday, 11/04/2014</span>
<div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><p style="margin-left:36pt">As the European Commission clearly stated in its <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-14-142_en.htm">Communication on Internet Policy and Governance</a>
of 12 February 2014, conflicting visions on the future of the Internet
and on how to strengthen its multistakeholder governance in a
sustainable manner have intensified recently. The next two years will be
critical in redrawing the global map of Internet governance. Europe
must contribute to finding a credible way forward for global internet
governance; it must play a strong role in defining how the internet is
run and ensuring it remains a single, un-fragmented network.</p></div></div></div></div></div><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><p style="margin-left:36pt">In less than two weeks, I will be travelling to Sao Paulo to attend <a href="http://netmundial.br/">NETmundial, the Multi-stakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance</a>.
The purpose of NETmundial is to develop principles of Internet
governance and a roadmap for the future development of this ecosystem.
This international conference comes at a very timely moment in the
debates on Internet governance and I commend the Brazilian government,
and in particular President Dilma Rousseff, for taking this important
initiative.</p><p style="margin-left:36pt">I was very pleased that the Brazilian Government asked me to join the <a href="http://netmundial.br/hlmc/">High-Level Multi-stakeholder Committee of NETmundial</a>, which oversees the overall strategy of the meeting and fosters the involvement of the international community.</p>
<p style="margin-left:36pt">The
members of the High-Level Multi-stakeholder Committee recently received
a "draft outcome document", prepared on the basis of the <a href="http://content.netmundial.br/docs/contribs">more than 180 comments and submissions</a> (including <a href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/roadmap-for-the-further-evolution-of-the-internet-governance-ecosystem/177">two</a> <a href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/internet-governance-principles/176">submissions</a> by the European Commission) to the conference. A <a href="http://netmundial.br/blog/2014/04/08/information-regarding-the-draft-outcome-document/">public consultation on the outcome document</a> is going to be launched by the conference organisers very shortly.</p>
<p style="margin-left:36pt">In
the meantime, I shared my observations on this draft document with my
colleagues in the High-Level Multi-Stakeholder Committee, the co-chairs
of the drafting team and with the secretariat of the conference; in a
spirit of transparency, I would like to also share them with the broader
Internet community.</p><p style="margin-left:36pt">++++++++</p><p style="margin-left:36pt"><strong>From:</strong><strong> KROES Neelie (CAB-KROES)<br>Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2014 7:26 PM<br>To: '<a href="mailto:hlmc@netmundial.br">hlmc@netmundial.br</a>'<br>
Subject: RE: [HLMC] NETmundial draft outcome document</strong></p><p style="margin-left:36pt"> </p><p style="margin-left:36pt"><strong>Dear colleagues,</strong></p><p style="margin-left:36pt"><strong>I
read with great interest the "draft outcome document" for NETmundial
prepared by the Executive Meeting Committee (EMC). I would like to thank
the members of the EMC and the colleagues who supported them for the
hard work that went into drafting the document in such a short amount of
time.</strong></p><p style="margin-left:36pt"><strong>On behalf of
the European Commission, I would like to share with you a number of
observations and considerations, which I trust will be useful as we move
forward towards meeting each other in Sao Paulo in two weeks' time.</strong></p><p style="margin-left:36pt"><strong>It
is in my view absolutely essential that we make a collective effort to
ensure that the final outcomes of NETmundial are concrete and
actionable, with clear milestones and with a realistic but ambitious
timeline. As I had the occasion to underline throughout my tenure as EU
Commissioner for the Digital Agenda and responsible for EU Internet
governance policies - and as the European Commission clearly asserted in
our recent Communication on Internet Policy and Governance - I strongly
believe that we need to put on the table an evolutionary but concrete
agenda for addressing the limitations – whether real or perceived – of
the current multi-stakeholder model for the governance of the Internet.</strong></p><p style="margin-left:36pt"><strong>In
this sense, I regret to say that I find the draft outcome document too
abstract and vague when it comes to the proposed roadmap. I understand
the challenges that the EMC had to face in summarising the many
contributions that were submitted, and I trust my remarks will be taken
as a constructive contribution; but I am convinced this outcome
document, as it stands, will be interpreted as putting off necessary
discussions – in particular by those who have different opinion as to
the value and effectiveness of the multi-stakeholder model.</strong></p><p style="margin-left:36pt"><strong>To
be clear, I am not arguing that all substantive issues should be
"solved" in Sao Paulo. This is neither the purpose of the meeting nor a
realistic achievement to plan for, and indeed we need to have a targeted
number of issues to address over the two days. However, NETmundial
should definitively mark a significant "change of pace" in the
discussions and deliberations that have taken place so far. My own
experience in public service suggests that a necessary condition to
achieve such objective is to start from a substantially more ambitious
point of departure than is currently the case.</strong></p><p style="margin-left:36pt"><strong>There are a few other observations on the draft outcome document that I would like to make at this point in time.</strong></p>
<p style="margin-left:36pt"><strong>First
of all, I found some of the language related to human rights
unnecessarily weak. I refer in particular to the passage "Internet
governance should be open, participatory, Multistakeholder,
technology-neutral, sensitive to human rights". We have an obligation to
respect and promote human rights, not merely be "sensitive" to them,
and this should be clearly reflected throughout the outcome document.
This includes, among a number of important issues, the protection of
privacy and personal data protection, which should have a prominent role
in the outcome document.</strong></p><p style="margin-left:36pt"><strong>Secondly,
self-regulation and self-organisation of different stakeholders are
certainly to be preserved and promoted. However, this cannot be to the
detriment of basic democratic principles. It is not sufficient that the
mechanisms through which "different stakeholder groups […] self-manage
their processes [are] based on publicly known mechanisms", if this
results in the explicit or implicit exclusion of persons in a manner
that would contradict democratic processes.</strong></p><p style="margin-left:36pt"><strong>Thirdly,
I am glad that the draft outcome document recognises the importance of
distributed institutional models for Internet governance, avoiding
centralised solutions as a default. This is very much in line with the
position of the European Commission that stronger interactions between
stakeholders involved in Internet governance should be fostered via
cross-cutting, issue-based dialogues, instead of through new bodies.
This would allow relevant stakeholders to address specific challenges
across structural and organisational boundaries. Such arrangements
should be inspired by the distributed architecture of the Internet which
should serve as a model for better interactions between all parties.</strong></p><p style="margin-left:36pt"><strong>In
this light, let me underline that in order for such distributed models
to truly work, especially for people, organisations and countries with
fewer resources to devote to this policy area, it is absolutely
essential that the right ICT tools are globally available. The draft
outcome document does refer to this, in particular in regard to remote
participation in meetings and discussions. I believe we should be more
ambitious and look more carefully at the role that ICTs, including Big
Data technologies, can play in this context. The European Commission is
addressing this challenge via the Global Internet Policy Observatory
(GIPO) initiative. I would be glad to share further details and explore
how we could join forces in this endeavour, possibly as a concrete
deliverable of NETmundial.</strong></p><p style="margin-left:36pt"><strong>Fourthly,
I cannot stress enough how important it is that we keep the momentum
towards a real and effective globalisation of core Internet functions
and decisions. This is perhaps one of the most essential conditions to
satisfy if we want the multi-stakeholder model for Internet governance
to be seen as truly legitimate across the world. I have already had the
occasion to congratulate the United States Government for its
announcement of 14 March 2014, concerning the globalisation of certain
IANA functions; I am therefore pleased that the draft outcome document
specifically mentions the globalisation of both IANA and ICANN. I want
nonetheless to underline that any such movement towards further
globalisation of Internet processes should firmly and explicitly keep
the public interest as a primary condition.</strong></p><p style="margin-left:36pt"><strong>I
appreciate that the EMC in its proposal has tried to take maximum
account of the contributions received. However, I think that the
conference should not overextend the areas it wants to cover
meaningfully. </strong></p><p style="margin-left:36pt"><strong>I am
not convinced, for example, that the outcome document should or indeed
needs to touch upon issues such as "network neutrality" and the
liability of Internet intermediaries. Both are certainly very important
issues in the overall debate on an open Internet, but are the subject of
detailed discussions elsewhere. </strong></p><p style="margin-left:36pt"><strong>On
Net Neutrality for example, legislators of the European Union are at
this very moment engaged in a democratic debate on the "Connected
Continent" proposal by the European Commission. I understand a similar
debate is taking place in Brazil, on the "Marco Civil". We should not be
seen as prejudging the outcome of a democratic procedure on such
sensitive topics. </strong></p><p style="margin-left:36pt"><strong>As
regards the topic of the liability of intermediaries, I believe there
is no added value in referring, via potentially contentious language, to
an issue which has extensively been debated in many different settings
and democratic fora and has in some cases been enshrined in legislation,
as is the case of the European Union. </strong></p><p style="margin-left:36pt"><strong>I
trust the above observations will be taken with the same constructive
spirit with which I wrote them. I am looking forward to meeting all of
you in Sao Paulo.</strong></p><p style="margin-left:36pt"> </p><p style="margin-left:36pt"><strong>Yours sincerely,</strong></p><p style="margin-left:36pt"><strong>Neelie Kroes</strong></p><p style="margin-left:36pt"><strong>Vice-President of the European Commission"</strong></p>
</div></div></div></div></div><br>Best regards,<br><br></div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style>--<br>
Andrea Glorioso (Mr)<br>
European Commission - DG Communication Networks, Content and Technology<br>
Unit D1 (International relations) + Task Force on Internet Policy Development<br>
Avenue de Beaulieu 25 (4/64) / B-1049 / Brussels / Belgium<br>
T: +32-2-29-97682 M: +32-460-797-682 E: <a href="mailto:Andrea.Glorioso@ec.europa.eu">Andrea.Glorioso@ec.europa.eu</a><br>
Twitter: @andreaglorioso<br>
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