Trickles, springs, waterfalls – European democracy in change – PL 04 2012

From EuroDIG Wiki
Revision as of 18:04, 13 November 2020 by Eurodigwiki-edit (talk | contribs) (→‎People)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

15 June 2012 | 9:30-11:00
Programme overview 2012

People

Key Participants

  • Carl Bildt, Minister for Foreign Affairs Sweden
  • Thorbjørn Jagland, Secretary General, Council of Europe
  • Ehsan Norouzi, Deutsche Welle,
  • Marietje Schaake, Member of the European Parliament
  • Mats Svegfors, Director General, Swedish Radio

Moderator

  • Emily Taylor, Lawyer and Internet law and governance consultant

Transcript

Provided by: Caption First, Inc., P.O. Box 3066, Monument, CO 80132, Phone: +001-719-481-9835, www.captionfirst.com


This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.


>> STAFFAN JONSON: Thank you very much, Beata, and guys from the Youth Forum.

The next plenary will take a while in a couple minutes, but I’ll start with introducing myself. I’m Staffan Jonson. I’d like to introduce you to the next plenary, plenary 4 called Trickle, Springs, Waterfall, European democracy in change. And we have a fantastic set of speakers this morning to enlighten this. But I will not represent them for you, so instead I brought a stand-in or a moderator called Emily Taylor. Please, Emily, come join us, that will introduce our speakers. So we will have a brief intermission while we get microphones on speakers. So please stay put just a couple of minutes.

Thank you.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Thank you very much, Staffan.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to session 4, the plenary session. Trickles, springs and water falls, European democracy in change. We will have the panel up on stage in just a few moments. But perhaps while they get microphoned up and they move the furniture, perhaps we can reflect on the Nordic Youth and their insights. Thank you very much to all of the participants. I know that it’s quite intimidating addressing an audience like this at any stage in your life. And for you to have conducted yourselves with such assurance and given us such insights is really remarkable. Thank you very much.

(Applause)

And just to say as well that the moderator encouraged us all to cheer and clap, but I think that people were listening too much and they didn’t want to interrupt the flow, so you shouldn’t take that as anything at all. But, thank you very much. And I think it’s probably a salutory lesson to those of us who spend a lot of time talking about the needs of youth and what people are doing online to actually hear from them themselves about what they actually think and what they actually are doing.

So I’m going to introduce to you in theory, and hopefully the people will just appear, our wonderful panel of speakers today. But first of all, could I just on a housekeeping note just mention that we will be finishing this session about five minutes early. Okay?

Just so that you know, which is good, really, because it means that we all get our coffee earlier.

So on our panel today I’m delighted to welcome Carl Bildt, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden. Former Prime Minister and of course avid Internet user and blogger and tweeter.

(Applause)

Welcome, Mr. Bildt.

Next up I’d like you to welcome Thorbjorn Jagland, the Director General of the Council of Europe, also a former Prime Minister of Norway and also the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

(Applause)

So I’ll leave it to you guys to, please, organise yourselves. Self organise, or have a bottom up process for organising seating.

Next is Marietje Schaake, MEP for the Netherlands, Social Liberal Party.

(Applause)

Next we have Mats Svegfors, Director General for Swedish Radio.

(Applause)

Last but certainly not least, we have Ehsan Norouzi, Web activist and journalist and the mastermind behind Esad Cyber. +++

Let’s sit down. Thank you for joining this session. And we have a wide ranging agenda that has been “set” for us is probably a bit too strong a term for it, but the EuroDIG has a very inclusive way of agenda setting. And many, many topics were fed into this session. But I think that they organised themselves around four or five headings.

First of all, we’re asking the panel and also the audience to think about the way that the Internet is changing Democracy, Democratic engagement, the way that people interact with their politicians. Are we closer to our politicians than before? Are we more active as citizens? What impact is this going to have on the way that we organise our democracy in the future, both within Europe and of course within emerging democracies, if I may put it like that.

The role of the media, does the Internet challenge the traditional media? Does it – is it complementary? It’s certainly here, and the traditional media has to adapt. And we will be hearing about the challenges and also the opportunities.

We will talk about freedom and privacy, these – I think, Thorbjorn, you said that these concepts have often become fudges and let’s see if we can extricate those concepts and look at them more in the concept of democracy.

And then Internet Governance, the title of this conference is “Who makes the rules for the Internet?” I think we have all kind of elegantly avoided tackling that question, but this is something, you know, for those of us who have been involved in talking about the Internet for some years, it’s wonderful to see so much more political engagement and heavy hitters from the political and Democratic institutions talking about the Internet, but this means it’s visible, guys. And when that happens, something will be changing.

And then, lastly, I’d like us all to look to the future. In your opening address yesterday – sorry, the microphone keeps falling off – in your opening address yesterday, you talked about the Internet as being as revolutionary as the Guttenburg printing press. So a bit of fun, let’s take a long view and imagine that we’re sitting here sometime far in the future and look at what the Internet has done to the world around us and to everything. So that is my plan. If it’s anything like yesterday, that will go completely out the window.

But what we will do is I hope that we can just involve the audience and that you’ll pose your questions to the panel, but if we can try to keep loosely to this theme. If we start off with the Democratic process, so think about your questions now, we have the Twitter feed which I’d like to hear, if we can get a sense of what is trending on Twitter, whether there are remote participation questions coming in, just raise your hand.

So, anyway, that is quite enough for me, right.

Carl Bildt, Foreign Minister Sweden, you are, as I said, an avid Twitterer, tweeter or blogger. And you said that the Internet helps to bring politicians closer to the citizens. Do you think that in doing so it sort of erodes the mystique of politicians? Is this just a one-way street? You know, what are the risks of that?

>> CARL BILDT: I fail to see any great risks. The more transparency and openness that we have in political and public life, the better. It doesn’t perhaps change our societies that much. We are sort of basically fairly open societies. But of course there are a number of societies around the world that are less open, to put it mildly. And there you see how it does challenge the established structures and hierarchies in a way that is distinctly unsettling from the point of view of power. But of course it’s encouraging for some others of us. So there you see a distinct change.

Here it’s an evolution. It’s new channelings of information and communication, new channels of awareness, the public at large being aware of what the politicians are doing, and what they are thinking, and what they are trying to do.

And don’t forget the other part of it: Connecting in another way. For people in responsible positions being able to acquire information much faster than would otherwise have been the case. So it does challenge everything, and I think we are only in the very, very faint beginning of the further evolutionary development.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Thank you.

Marietje Schaake, there is something strange going on, though, isn’t there? Because there is that sort of engagement that, you know, there is a flow of information to politicians as well as from politicians. But at the same time, I don’t know if it’s related, but there seems to be a vote of apathy. You know, we’re seeing that the turnout at the ballot box is dropping. Do you think these things are related? What do you think can be done about it?

>> MARIETJE SCHAAKE: Well, I would like to think they are not related, but that it’s an opportunity. And I do think that with the emergence of new technologies and interaction between people and their representatives, on a daily basis, a new generation or a new kind of politician will come to the stage.

I think people will look for very different kinds of characteristics, kinds of accountability, kinds of legitimacy in their representatives. And I think we must embrace that.

And what I observe is actually two trends that are not exactly in sync with each other yet. It’s the bottom up empowerment of people, which is very, very powerful, potentially. Such as how we saw the movements against the proposed SOPA bills in the United States and the ACTA administrations in Europe, massive forces from the bottom up. And then on the established circles of politics, on the one hand I think people were woken up by this movement. On the other hand, I think some people got quite scared and also got quite upset about this sort of massive voice that influenced colleagues.

So there is also a risk that some people believe that these kinds of movements, well organised minorities, should not dictate the political agenda.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Yes, because one interpretation of this is some people would say it’s more brew.

>> MARIETJE SCHAAKE: That’s what some politicians experience. Part is an education process and what we need is more transparency. Some are not transparent from the view of the politician, so they don’t know who is behind movement, who is sending emails. Is it automatically generated or is it individuals, is it their constituency, how representative of these networks? So I think we need an opening up from the top through opening up our institutions, by, for example, open data and more collaborative processes, so there can be more transparency and so that it doesn’t always have to be sort of a protest and almost challenging movement, but that it can be more of an embracing of opportunities that new technologies bring for more transparency, accountability and ultimately more legitimacy of representatives. Clearly, this is a challenge that we face in Europe and we must find solutions for this, to keep our democracy healthy and up to date with the current times.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Thank you.

Just reflecting on that, and one of the – you know, as Marietje said, the political discourse and sort of the activism, it’s not the mob, but it is very combative. And I can also imagine that if you’re sitting in a position of authority, whether it’s as a politician or in Government, to have that incredibly critical discourse so close would actually make you more likely to hide things, more likely to not admit to your fails. And this is not just Governments, this is institutions and companies who find themselves exposed to that level of, you know, scrutiny. And in some ways, you know, from the Council of Europe’s standpoint, you couple freedom, human rights and peace. But the exercise of those freedoms and the expression isn’t very peaceful sometimes and can lead to awful conflict, bloodshed.

So how do we convince people who think that it’s actually safer? We heard one of our youth speakers talking about sometimes it’s – it keeps you safe to censor things. What do you say to that?

>> THORBJORN JAGLAND: First of all, I would like to say – is this on?

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Yes.

>> THORBJORN JAGLAND: I’d like to say that we shouldn’t overestimate the power of the Internet. After all, we had the revolutions long before Internet came. The Internet was not there when the revolution in Russia started in 1917.

>> CARL BILDT: Thanks God.

>> THORBJORN JAGLAND: But, of course, the Internet is –

(Laughter)

– it is a very strong force. I think it is important for all actors to understand what is going on, and also it will be those of us who are able to transform something positive and constructive out of this. There is a missing link right now, because you cannot shape the politics on Twitter or Facebook. Politics have to be shaped in different ways. And so therefore there is a missing link between the way we have been shaping politics in the past, which was in the meeting rooms, in Congress halls like this. People can sit around the table to discuss the reactions between political parties and the civil society. I mean, there was an awareness kind of dialogue in the society. But people are involved and they are face-to-face.

Now, this indirect democracy, which the Internet and Facebook and Twitter represent, you don’t have that mechanism. So the question is, how do you connect the good things we have from the past and the new things that we are getting now?

I think if the – normally, we don’t understand historic, deep historic transformation. Who could believe what would be the result of the second industrial evolution when it started in the midst of the 19th century? Who could believe what it – what came out of it?

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Yes.

>> THORBJORN JAGLAND: What they actually did, one of the things that we got from the second industrial revolution was the political parties we have today.

I wonder what will be the outcome of this industrial revolution. What kind of political system will be the result of this revolution? I don’t know. But I’m quite sure that we will not have the one we have today.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: We’re seeing, if I can come to you, Ehsan, we’re seeing the violent clashes in Iran that you wrote about after disputed elections. And so I’m posing the same question to you, these freedoms that – the fact that you can get information from different sources on the Internet, it doesn’t always lead to peace and reconciliation, does it? And whether we, you know, we’re going to be changing as you say, to Thorbjorn Jagland, but that process of change is likely to be disruptive. It will be painful. There will be losers and they are not going to give up without a fight, as we see.

>> EHSAN NOROUZI: First of all, some of these clashes and bloodshed in a country like Iran are inevitable and it’s not like the Internet or technology’s fault.

But regarding what you said, when we are talking about the impacts on power of technology or Internet, it’s not necessarily meaning that we are expecting only revolutions from the Internet. I mean, as you said, there were revolutions even before the emergence of the Internet. The current developments in the Middle East, in Iran, starting from Iran, showed us that if – at the end of the day, everything is up to people’s choice and that really is what can make changes happen. But if they want, if the people want change, the technologies, the Internet online services can help them. I mean, it will definitely accelerate change in these countries.

But the problem is that, I mean, with the Internet censorship on the rise, in both dictatorships and democracy, this will decrease the possibilities for change, in my view. At the end of the day, the only legitimate purpose of Government and technology is to serve people. And I think – there is no right way to do Internet censorship and even the best version of a bad idea remains a bad idea.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Maybe you could comment on that before we get started. But there is no good way to do censorship. Is there nothing that should be censored?

>> MATS SVEGFORS: No, there should be no censorship, but that is not to say that everything should be allowed to be published on the Internet. It’s the same situation with print in all civilized society. But no censorship. You have responsibility for what you are publishing.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: That’s right. And one of the – I was very struck by one of the youth speakers just now saying that actually the greatest threat that she perceives online is misinformation. And when we take your perspective as –

>> MATS SVEGFORS: A journalist always is about misinformation. If you read something that is about yourself, you know that there is always something wrong in this article.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: When we think about the Internet and its affect on democracy, you said that the outcome of the Obama election in 2008 was definitely influenced by the Internet, but not in the way that people think. Can you explain what you mean by that?

>> MATS SVEGFORS: I wrote a book to go with the directive of the Attorney General. It said that if you should understand the campaign during the last presidential election, the Obama camp, Internet was essential for how that campaign was built-up. But it was not – it was not the direct importance of Internet in the sense that it was – that people in general communicated with the election campaign. That was not the core thing. The most important thing was that the campaign couldn’t have been run in that way, in fact it was, if the Internet hadn’t been there.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Any questions from the audience? I see one from the remote moderator. Anything else while we get the microphone? Anyone else want to pose a question on democracy and the way that the Internet is changing it? I think they are sleeping. Oh, yes. So can we get a microphone to Bertrand. Go ahead.

>> MODERATOR: We have a few questions from Twitter. One is how should politicians address (inaudible) – that is first made to take this from social media? And this was Yerki. Sorry for the pronunciation.

From Finland, another one from (inaudible). Do politicians (inaudible).

And the first one from Jeff Martin: Do decision makers need to become younger to pick up the challenge of the digital world to democracy? Thanks.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: The first question, did you hear the first question?

>> CARL BILDT: What was the first question? Could you repeat it? It was unclear what he wants.

>> MODERATOR: The first one is about how to address anonymous person’s slander or liable in social media. Defamation.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Anonymity, slander, and how do we address that.

Who wants to have a go at that one?

>> CARL BILDT: Well, it’s a problem but it’s a problem that we have irrespective of the social media. Slander, misinformation, evil rumor have been around for quite sometime. You might argue that the Internet and the social media, whatever that, makes it more possible to spread these things around faster. But you might equally argue that it makes it also faster to spread the truth around, to counter the lies. All of these will be even voices on net.

The net is a reflection of everything in society. Good, bad, distinctly evil. We have all of those things in society. And the extremes always are somewhat more vocal. But I think the basic lesson for Democratic societies for quite sometime is that openness is the best way to counter that.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: And the point that extremes are amplified on the Internet. And that brings it back to the point that you made, Thorbjorn Jagland, about how do we get this sort of rather radical voice from the Internet to fit in to our traditional processes, is how I understood what you were saying.

>> THORBJORN JAGLAND: That is a huge challenge for the political parties. But let me say that, I really, Carl, there is so much misunderstanding, and I would say also prejudices against Internet. It’s something dangerous, very different from all the other communication tools that we have in the society.

It is not, for instance, misinformation. That we had in the past very much by monopolies and the editors. They had the right to edit everything that people should know.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: And so –

>> THORBJORN JAGLAND: But, I mean, but we have purists in the media sector and therefore we handled it. And now when there is misinformation, there are others that commit different information. So the picture is not that bad, I think. It’s much more an opportunity for people to get the information.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Thank you.

So, Marietje, do decision makers have to be younger to cope?

>> MARIETJE SCHAAKE: No. I would like to think that everybody has access in this platform, and that’s one of the advantages, that the monopolies as was mentioned on information and on power are broken through and that there is a serious opportunity for individuals to be empowered. And part of what we see is that some of the disgruntlement and critical voices now are also visible. It’s part of the transparency process.

It’s not to say that the people were not there. Some of them were writing to editors in traditional news outlets, some were probably talk in the bar criticizing politicians, and now they have a platform to voice this criticism.

One of the challenges that we all face together is to look beyond the immediate, to continue to be able to sketch long-term perspectives and to bring leadership there. One of the risks for politicians in this age, no matter how old they are, is to be drawn to what they know to be a calculated majority. So it’s easier to know how you can win a vote, how you can win an issue, how you can gain popularity, but a democracy is also distinctly characterized by the way that we deal with minorities and minority voices. And that has to balance out.

And it’s almost like a snow globe. Everything is shaken and some of the fuzz and some of the excitement needs to kind of calm down to find a more sustainable way of sustainable impact on transparency and democracy and accountability, which I still think technology presents many opportunities for.

But they don’t exist in a vacuum. I think that is the most important thing to realize. It’s not just technology that is changing the world. It relates to all kinds of other aspects of our society.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: So our audience woke up. I’m aware that there are lots and lots of hands. I’ll go first to Alexander Alvaro, the Vice President of The European Parliament. And can we get your question?

I’ll come to you Bertrand. So I’ll go sort of sweep through and pick up a lot of questions from the audience and then we will get a bunch of responses so we can hear voices. Thank you. Go ahead.

>> ALEXANDER ALVARO: Thank you very much, Emily. It might sound awkward as a politician myself asking this question, but a lot of stuff was dealt with by Member States. So if we are in our safe haven Europe and where we have Freedom of Expression, when we cause advances in democracy it’s one thing. But if we look at other countries, and Marietje is active in the banks, I mean European companies are exporting filter and blocking technologies to countries which do not meet our standards in democracy in anything. When will Member States or societies start to do something at that?

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Thank you very much.

So I’ll go to Ehsan and then Carl Bildt.

>> EHSAN NOROUZI: Regarding this issue of politicians and technology, I would say that politicians shouldn’t necessarily be younger, but they shouldn’t be this ignorant of a lot of details about technology and online services. Most of the politicians all over the world don’t know a lot about the network, about the Internet, and this is making a lot of problems for us, for the connected generation, actually.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Can we just address the question, please, about export of – do you use technologies? Because we will have to raise the pace a bit and be a bit more tweety in our replies, so that we can just get through the questions.

>> EHSAN NOROUZI: It’s making a lot of problems, whenever something happens in a country like Syria, Iran, there are companies like Nokiaa, semens, blue coat or other companies in sir ran and area or other countries, under oppressive rejeejss, they install this kind of equipment. When information is leaked, they come to these conferences, and then they send their soldiers, articulate the people to justify what they have done. There should be punishments for these kinds of companies, because what they are doing right now is just like saying yes, we have cut our relations with the Iranian regime and now everything is fine.

But the thing is that those equipments, hardware, software, are still there. Operating. And like spinning like the centrifuge of Iranian nuclear facilities. They are really that dangerous and have consequences. I mean, they are endangering people’s lives. It shouldn’t necessarily lead to like bloodshed or torturing people. It can simply be like my brother may be just interrogated, detained for some hours or days because of a Skype call. But this system, I mean, whether it’s a censorship system or surveillance, the regimes like Iran or Syria wouldn’t be able to make it themselves.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: So European and western companies are enabling this sort of repression.

Carl Bildt.

>> CARL BILDT: Well, we have sanctions and bans of those technology to Iran and Syria.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Does that make it okay for those to be exported to others?

>> CARL BILDT: Well, yes, we sell – as a matter of fact, we don’t sell to Sweden. Our security service, to be honest, of course, we have, under the law, we have the possibility to go off to certain criminals, and we have surveillance technologies operating in Stockholm where the court can order the security service can tap a telephone or go into something else. But that technology is not manufactured in Sweden.

But anyhow, the technologies are there, and there are suppliers from other parts of the world, not to mention anyone – I think I did, as a matter of fact – but we have banned it from Europe.

Then that doesn’t solve the problem. We have done quite a lot of thinking about that. I think those technologies are always going to be there. I mean, you mention it’s a hardware thing, but also software thing. And software is hard to control on the net, as you know from the piracy debates. The more prolific we have the network, the more difficult it is for authorities to track. We see that in China. They tried to control microblogs, they don’t really succeed. And it’s not because of lack of technical expertise. It’s not because of lack of trying. It’s because of the networks that are so prolific that it’s simply difficult to do.

Go back 25 years in time, and we had between Stockholm, Sweden and the Soviet Union there was a thing called the Soviet Union in that direction, nearby, we had eight telephone lines between Stockholm and the Soviet union. You had to wait for a number of hours to get a telephone call through. You could be dead certain that there were a number of people on the line once you got that particular call.

Now, I mean, the bandwidth that we have between, say, Sweden and Russia or Sweden and whatever is immense and increasing very fast. And if you try to control over all of it, I would say welcome. At some point in time you will not succeed.

So prolific rates of the networks, limit the technologies, that would be the way to handle this.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: One sentence, and then I’m going to – there is a clump of questions there.

>> MARIETJE SCHAAKE: It’s not about what is technically possible, it’s about who do we want to be as Europe. The reason it’s not succeeding in China or Iran or Syria to muffle people is because people are brave and innovative. And they are more creative and clever than the companies. But as Europe we must stop digital arms trade because we are not that community of values that want to be a part of that. We don’t trade conventional weapons to certain countries and we shouldn’t –

(Applause)

– trade communication weapons to other countries.

>> BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: I’m with the International Diplomatic Academy in Paris. One quick point following what Carl Bildt just said. At the time, you needed humans to be listening to the lines. One of the changes today is that the bandwidth is much larger, but you have zillions of automatic screening systems that allow deeper monitoring in some respects. So just as an addition.

The point I wanted to make is if we push on the comparison with the invention of the printing press, if we remember it had a long-term effect by triggering the Democratic revolutions in Europe and bringing the Parliament the Democratic system that we have today, how much of a similar impact do you believe that it will have on the representative democracy that we have? We have moved from Monarchies to representative democracy. And here in Sweden, as an example, the two can be combined. This is no reason to say that representative democracy is going to disappear because we are getting into the digital age. How is it going to be combined, completed, complemented with other mechanisms? What is your view of what it can be in the relatively long-term perspective?

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Just hand the microphone to – yes?

>> CARL BILDT: Just on the first point, because you are of course right, but now you have also the computer screen and things like that. But at the end of the day it doesn’t help. At the end of the day it has to go to a human. I’ve seen examples of this. Countries that have invested in intelligence gathering over the net, at the end of day they connect so much they don’t see anything. It’s the American thing of connecting the dots. They have machines completely clogged with dots, but they can’t connect them. So this is beginning to be so large that it’s very difficult to do even if you try it.

>> MATS SVEGFORS: Coming back to your question, if you should understand the development of the newspaper, the crucial thing was not the printing press, the crucial thing was investment in roadways. We transported the print newspaper and then the print newspaper exploded. And underlining that is you had to see these things in contextual. And that’s what you said in your question. And that is still true for the Internet.

>> THORBJORN JAGLAND: You put a very important question: What kind of impact will the new media have on what we call representative democracy? There we have to look at what the representative democracy is today. The basis for representative democracy is political parties. But if you look the at situation in Europe today, you will find that the members, the number of members in political parties is declining very fast. Actually, the political parties are very small clubs, compared to the huge population that I attempt to represent. And if you look into the meetings they have, the meetings that decide, they are also very, very small in all European countries today.

So the question is: Can these representative democracies survive? Because there are so many other things going on around them in which they are not able to get into the meeting rooms. And I think this is the most important question for democracy today, how to mobilize the huge fortress we have now in social media in the streets and all this, into some kind of representative democracy. Because I don’t think we can have only direct democracy. It’s not possible.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: I’m getting increasingly of desperate waves from the audience. Let’s take some questions, and encourage our panel to really be one sentence or two in reply.

>> AUDIENCE: This is just more a little plug. At plenary 5 I’ll be presenting a report specifically on the surveillance technologies and responsibilities of companies in relation to these technologies, including also export control possibilities with Russia in mind. So come to plenary 5.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Pass it two rows forward and then I’ll come to you. I’ve got one there and one there.

>> AUDIENCE: My name is Wolfgang Kleinwachter, I’m a professor. I want to continue with Bertrand’s questions about the new models of democracy. You know, I was a member of the United Nations Working Group on Internet Governance in 2005, and we defined Internet Governance. And the conclusion was that the Internet cannot be governed by one stakeholder alone. It needs all stakeholders involved, Governments, private sector, civil society and the technical community. This was the first part of the definition that is widely accepted.

But the second part of the definition is probably even more explosive because it says that all the stakeholders have to share norms, principles, programmes, and decision-making procedures. I think the title of this EuroDIG is “Who makes the rules for the Internet?”

So it means we are talking about who makes decisions?

And this is my question to the politicians in the Parliament or Government, do you have any idea how decision-making procedures can be shared among the stakeholders? I think this goes to the fundamentals of our system. And Mr. Thorbjorn Jagland asked this question or raised this question that, you know, we have to think out of the box and to come to some proposals.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Thank you. Marietje, do you want to answer?

>> MARIETJE SCHAAKE: How does technology change representative democracy as such? And on the other hand, how do we create a viable model for Internet Governance. I think those are two very different things. I think one of the questions that we have to answer is how important do we believe our rules based system is?

The more multistakeholder initiative, the more self regulation we seek, the less Democratic oversight there could potentially be. And the more power goes to private sector or multistakeholder initiatives, away from let’s say the Democratic and political structures.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: And the power also goes to the people who show up, right? And that’s not necessarily representative. Is this one of the challenges that you can see?

>> MARIETJE SCHAAKE: That’s always been the case. If people don’t vote, then they can’t have their voices heard. But I think that they are two different things and we have to ask ourselves what kind of systems do we want to build and are the technologies that are developed and the governance structures such as multistakeholder initiatives inherently Democratic enough.

>> MATS SVEGFORS: This is nothing new. If you look upon the history in the countries in northern Europe, you had an interaction between the different social forces, even in the old society, but still it has been the Parliament has taken the decisions above law, and that will be the case even in the future. But before that, those decisions, there has been this interaction with all the different social forces.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Carl Bildt wants to comment.

>> CARL BILDT: The Internet Governance is a complicated issue. I was chairing a panel in ICANN, ten years ago, something like that, where we tried to find some sort of solution. I don’t think we did. But I think the conclusion – I think the same conclusion from the work that you participated in, so far, so good.

I mean, the multistakeholder self regulating system that we have had so far has served the system and the world exceedingly well. The Internet as we know today would not have been possible without that rather unique system of self governance. So I would argue that don’t meddle too much with it unless we are damn certain there is a better alternative. And everything that I’ve seen proposed so far say that the Chinese and the Russians and the Iranians are active in proposing alternatives. I think that indicates the nature of the problem that we might end up with if we go down that road. But so far, so good. Stick with it, it works.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Sir?

>> I’m Thomas the Austrian representative to the Council of Europe and I want to pick up on what Thorbjorn Jagland said. The Internet is certainly a great means for direct participation of the individual citizen in decision-making. So it could be used with the digital ID that we by now more and more get as a means for the individual to participate from his laptop in a referendum. And we see today in Europe many countries discusses this to enlarge the possibilities for a referenda.

My question is should we go this way? Yes or no.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: How do you feel about a digital ID?

>> EHRAN: I don’t know about this digital ID issue, so I’ll pass.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: We have Thomas Schneider up there waving his hand. There is a microphone there first. Could we get one to Thomas and then there is a group over there as well. You need one. Thank you.

>> AUDIENCE: I’m Gurig from Ardinia. And my question is also about possibilities of direct democracy. And you know that at the invent of the Internet, we had the change in business models. For example, the books are now sold through Amazon and it changed the whole business model. 20 percent of bestsellers were given 80 percent of all income, and now through aggregation of smaller titles, the income is coming from much more smaller titles. And this is called a long tail model in business. Could we envision something similar in politics, where we could aggregate, you know, smaller groups’ interest, and have direct impact on political process? And do you think that bestseller parties are going to – that the influence of bestseller parties is going to be done all over the world?

>> MARIETJE SCHAAKE: Name me one bestseller party. I don’t see that many of them. But I do think that we already see this happening; that is, well organised minorities have been able to really generate a lot of impact through the use of technologies. Not only because they can amplify their voice, but because people may not realize that they have allies somewhere else in the world or somewhere else to work together with. And I think at very low cost and very low threshold, as long as people are online of course. I mean, we have to consider inclusiveness in a very serious way. The more powerful of an impact these technologies will have.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Thomas Schneider, you are waving. Is it for yourself or one of your neighbors?

>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: No. No. It’s for myself. I’m Thomas from the Swiss Government. Listening to this discussion and having grown up in a country with elements of direct democracy, for centuries, it’s funny to some extent. Because 20 years ago I was one of of the activists in Switzerland collecting more than 100,000 signatures in four-days against the Government’s decision to buy new military fighter planes. It took us four-days to get 100,000 signatures. We had no Facebook, but we were organised and motivated. And this is different to the countries with a purely representative democracy. We had ways to express our discontent with the Government decisions that in our countries people don’t have. So they have to go to the streets

Now they use Facebook and all of these things. And I think this is Marietje Schaake said it, this has to change the way Government representatives or parliamentarians work, and you have to use this channel to allow people to give them ways to express themselves, and not just vote every five years and hope for the next election vote for the other party and vote for the other party five years again. I don’t think this is a very efficient system.

Our experience is that the people do not make worse decisions in general than the parliamentarians. If you have a functioning media system, as we had with radio in the ’30s, we had the experience that communication tools can be abused by power if you control them. And we have to make sure that the Internet remains free, that no single party or single economic power can control the media.

We need trustworthy media and protection and rules for the media in order to have independent and free and diverse media.

>> EHSAN NOROUZI: This is scary for a lot of Governments. This is the worst case that can happen for the future. The future is not so bright with this surveillance and censorship on the rise, which will put our digital, our civil liberties, digital rights –

>> EMILY TAYLOR: And we were hearing yesterday, this is not just in Iran or other countries, it’s within Europe as well.

>> EHSAN NOROUZI: Regardless of being a dictatorship or democracy, they are doing that.

>> MATS SVEGFORS: The history of successful democracy, that is the history of political parties, the history of media, and the history of indirect democracy. That is the true history. That is the true success. And here we can see a kind of disruptive change now, and that is the most important, the most difficult question. What happens with established media?

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Indeed. And that is something that we will explore in one second. We’re just – sir?

>> PETER: (Inaudible)

Second, Twitter, I’ve seen Carl Bildt using it. How do you use this tool in practical terms as a politician, so that we know as citizens how to approach it? And what do you do with that? Thank you.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Thank you. Why do you use Twitter and how do you use it?

>> CARL BILDT: Concerning the transformation of political parties and other things, I think the biggest one is media. Look at the debate in the UK at the moment, the media. It’s alleged that some of the media were abusing their power. I don’t think you can ever get that powerful position on the Internet as you can get with the classical technologies of the classical media, because something else will happen. It’s a much more open competitive space. So that sort of misuse I think would be very difficult to see in sort of the social media or Internet space.

Twitter, for me, it’s very much a channel of information as well. I can write myself and hope that someone will find it interesting what I do, God knows why, and what I think, God knows why, but I can get a lot of information on what is happening in the world.

The number one example where I saw the power of it was when the Arab Spring started in Tunisia. All of the mainstream media, excuse me that I used that expression, were consumed by the story, which was not an insignificant one, of the U.S. Congressman who was shot at. A horrible story. That totally dominated our media in the western world. The Tunisian thing you saw coming on Twitter. So you can see the grass-roots things happening. And if you’re alert on Twitter, you can see things that take time until you see them in the big media. I think the big media is adjusting to this, but there you really saw the power.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: It expresses the dynamism of these online tools as well. It’s not just a send tool for you, it’s a receive tool.

>> CARL BILDT: It’s a receive tool. But you have to search yourself out there in the global social space or whatever you call it.

>> MARIETJE SCHAAKE: I fully agree with what Carl said. I learn more than anything and I feel I’m ahead of the curve because I sense the temperature not only in my country but the rest of the world.

Another factor which helps me a great deal is it allows me to have people know who I am. And sometimes they may agree with five things that I say. And they may think two things are ridiculous. But they become more tolerant and it allows me to explain when there is criticism, and it gives a more complete picture instead of just the things that make it through the traditional media. Because when we’re talking about the role of the media, and if I look at my own job as working in the European Parliament, the Dutch traditional media altogether have less than ten correspondents in Brussels for the council, Commission and Europe Parliament.

So we are missing investigative journalism and what is happening in Europe. And it makes me also responsible for informing people about what is going on in Europe beyond just what I do. And so that is another angle.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: We have the remote moderator waving.

Do you have a question from the remote?

>> MODERATOR: I have a question from a remote hub in the Ukraine. And they would like to put the their question –

>> EMILY TAYLOR: I apologize. I just don’t think we have got the time for that. Perhaps we can have that at the end. I want to actually move the debate into talking about the role of media, which we have been sort of skirting around the edges of. But of course one of the main supports of a Democratic discourse is a free and open and plural media. At the same time, we see that the income levels of traditional media outlets, the circulations of local newspapers, are dropping dramatically. There is no money in it anymore. What is the future for public service as a public service broadcaster? Is the Internet going to obliterate that concept?

>> Let me just give some figures. One week ago it was published, the figures for Swedish newspapers for reach. During the last year, the biggest morning daily lost 12 percent of its readers. In two years, it has lost one-third of its young readership. Figures were published the other day in Britain. The telegraph lost 13 percent not in circulation, in reach readers, during the last year.

Financial Times lost one fifth of its readership. You could say that’s mainly a world newspaper, but still –

>> EMILY TAYLOR: And we could –

>> And the option, the foreseeable answer, then the solution of course is public service.

Now –

(Laughter)

But traditional –

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Who is going to pay for it, though?

>> You. If you won’t pay, we will put you in prison.

(Laughter)

>> That’s a very good business model.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Hands up who is in favor of that

(laughter and applause)

>> EMILY TAYLOR: But there is a serious point. But people are resistant now for paying for information. They don’t want to and they don’t need to.

>> And the elite will be ready to pay for highly specialized stuff in media. But the mass won’t do it. The mass is vanishing from the media scene. And then the question is what could the state do together with citizens? Obviously, public service is a high potential instrument for societies to keep some kind of established quality media in the society.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: But how does it survive? Do either of you have a solution, Thorbjorn Jagland, Carl Bildt?

>> CARL BILDT: When you say that the (inaudible) are migrating away from the media, I don’t think they are. I think the younger generation is more well informed. They are reading less newspapers, I agree, but they are more on the net. And they are more well informed. Some – you also see sort of magazines are proliferating, the need for more adept information. So there is a change in the media. People are not leaving it, they are connecting more to it.

>> They are leaving mass media, not media.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: And that was your point earlier about the power of the media Moguls eroding as well.

>> THORBJORN JAGLAND: The important point is that the nature of politics and the nature of media are in huge transformation. What we had in the past were the political parties that spoke to the public. It was a kind of unifying force. They had debates that, so to say, everybody listened to or were very involved in. In the media, you had the same – I mean, you looked at the same television programme, the same news. But now, everything is disrupted. The political party is losing power. Less and less things are going on there. In the media you can’t find the, so to say, what is – what is the agenda? There are so many agendas, but no unifying debate.

So I think this is something very, very challenging for the democracies. Because it – I mena, I’m very much in favor of pluralism. But the question is how can we make this pluralism work in a Democratic way?

>> MARIETJE SCHAAKE: Well, I think both political parties and media have to regain legitimacy in a different way. If I look at some of the quality newspapers in my country, I read old news every day. So they have to reinvent their role. I would say it would be great if they would do more investigative journalism instead of news reporting. The news is out in realtime. By the time the paper goes to the print, it’s past the expiration date. The same for political parties. It’s more visible how representatives are in such a limited way. In a way new technologies are democratizing individuals, but also amplifying different voices. I think there is more pluralism.

Look at the amount of blogs. Look at how citizen journalism plays a role, especially from societies that are not open. And I think when you are talking about public service media, that is all great when you have independent media and a real functioning democracy. But even in Europe we have a number of countries where there is state control over these kinds of public broadcast, and that’s something that we have to tackle. So we cannot say that public service broadcasting is a solution per se. It may work to ensure that niches get catered to, but it’s not a blanket solution in today’s Europe.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: When you talk about state run public service broadcasting, is this just a little bursting bubble that we’re in? How does this translate into the environment, say, in Iran, and what is the impact on that sort of crowd sourced news gathering on state media?

>> EHSAN NOROUZI: It revolutionized the media in developing countries, in the countries especially that are struggling with oppressive regimes. These blogs, social networks and digital media is helping people having their voice heard all over the world. But traditional media and print, I think it’s dead. Only a miracle can save it.

And how to monetize content. Even I as a journalist for the very good quality content, I don’t pay. I mean, there are always other ways to get around restrictions and payrolls. So, I don’t really know what are the ways that can save that, but I think yes, maybe we should wait for that miracle.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Mats, help us. How are we going to save journalism? But you were going to put me in prison. I don’t think that is –

(Laughter)

>> MATS SVEGFORS: I’m not in the media business, perhaps I should be, but I’m not.

>> You’re welcome. The election is next year.

>> MATS SVEGFORS: It shouldn’t be that difficult. How do you monetize it? Well, ads. I mean, when these media, social media, Twitter, whatever, when they reach the Google business model, it does work.

They don’t produce content.

>> CARL BILDT: No, others do it. But the production of content, it’s expensive. But the distribution of content, the main cost for newspapers is printing and distributing and building – all of that – well, not all of it is gone. In the future, all of that is gone. Distribution costs zero. Ads should bring in more money because you reach more and you should be able to invest more in investigative background journalism. Because as Marietje Schaake said, we get the news past. So it should be a golden age for new media.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: So your message to Mats is stop whining, you know that –

(Applause)

– there’s always been a culture of local newspapers have always been funded through advertising. This isn’t new, is it? They are not economically viable through just distribution alone.

>> MATS SVEGFORS: The problem with you, Mr. Bildt, his perspective is this, he is a lead consumer of media. And this segment of media society will continue to develop. But the problem is mass media. The mass reach. And I don’t say that there aren’t solutions, but the old solutions, with the business model dominating for 100 years, that is eroding today and that’s a dramatic change.

>> CARL BILDT: But there is no information sector of media that hasn’t changed –

>> MATS SVEGFORS: You are an elite producer that speaks for the masses.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: We have a question.

>> AUDIENCE: I work for the European Youth Forum. I’m Letizia. I wanted to go back from the information debate, which is really, really fascinating, but I would like to go back to the Democratic processes. Because we have a few elections coming up this weekend that are quite crucial for Europe, for instance. And I’m wondering what do you think about using more Internet platforms to get citizens to actually participate in the construction of political parties’ programmes, if we want political parties to still be the foundations of representative democracies.

And going back to the question that was posed before, does maybe voting or Democratic participation through Internet affect the participation of more people? Because we are also not only the declining membership of political parties, but actually turn out. So what is your impression?

>> MARIETJE SCHAAKE: Well, I think –

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Sorry to interrupt. Just get a microphone to this gentleman down at the front.

>> MARIETJE SCHAAKE: The opportunities for crowd sourcing and collaborative programme development policymaking, even, are enormous. And I think they need to be developed in a sustainable way and a transparent way, not only within political parties, but I’m experimenting with it on an ad hoc basis, putting draft legislative texts online and allowing people to edit. I’m not guaranteeing anyone that I’ll copy everything that they say, but it’s a great way to solicit input. And the way our democracy still works is that we trust people to make decisions. And it doesn’t always mean that we follow what people would like us to do. But we should also think about what capacity that requires.

If you look at Dutch Parliament, most parliamentarians have one staffer. And so I’m struggling with this myself.

When I ask for input, I know that it’s, you know, probably and hopefully going to render a lot of results, which I embrace. But to go through it in a responsible way to give feedback in a responsible way requires capacity. And so I think it’s time for more systematic approaches to this, where from the parliamentary institutions, from City Council, from Government departments, this kind of openness and collaboration is facilitated in a systematic way. So that it doesn’t have to be so ad hoc and so that we can actually create capacity to go through it in a way that is responsible.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: And that calls to mind the example that you gave, Carl Bildt, about ICANN ten years ago.

And the current moan amongst ICANN insiders, this traveling circus of thousands of people who go around the world three times a year to do Internet Governance, is that it saps your time and that just individuals don’t have the capacity to be directly involved in governing the Internet or a very small part of it. So maybe all of this is just a phase and that people will eventually fall back to the – just the representative democracy that they had before. Because they don’t have the time to be engaged. You’re making a face so I think you disagree.

>> CARL BILDT: I can certainly attest to the circus traveling around the world and a highly qualified people who do it. But this is highly technical. There is the Internet engineering task force. It’s critical to the development of the net. I don’t understand a single word of what they say, but I consider it extremely important that these guys and girls continue to meet around the world and that they discuss these things in distinctly technical abstract terms, as long as it works, and it’s been a spectacular successful. Don’t mess with it.

>> AUDIENCE: I’m the deputy general director of media for the Spanish Government, Carlos. I want to mention transparency. This was mentioned. Transparency and Internet is the most powerful means to make public information accessible to citizens, to citizens who are taxpayers, and they have the right to know. And I want to point it out very quickly that in Spain we have just approved a transparency law to make accessible really very – all the public information at really very detailed budgets, detailed budget, salaries. And this effort has been supported from the top to the bottom. Even by His Majesty the king, I have to mention, who has made a strong effort to publish even the budgets and all the details of the royal household. So a very important effort.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: So this is – you’re highlighting the role of the Internet as a wonderful distribution system for information, transparency of Government particularly of publicly resourced things.

But when we come down to the role of the individual, Thorbjorn Jagland, that transparency on the role of the individual and the individual’s information isn’t something that the Council of Europe would really support, is it? Because as I understand your advocacy of the individual’s right to privacy, that is actually – that seems to be against transparency at the individual level. Does that make sense?

>> THORBJORN JAGLAND: Well, yes. This is one of the challenges that we have, the privacy issue, which we have addressed in – around the Internet security Convention, but we have to look into that now.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Does that mean it’s solved?

>> THORBJORN JAGLAND: No. It’s not solved. Not at all. It’s more challenging now than it was some years ago, I would say. So that’s one thing we look into. And there we really have to have some kind of international consensus on how we can do it. Because, I mean, at the bottom of all of this, we still have the principle of as little regulation as possible, but also the needed regulations.

But still the most important regulating factor at International is securing Freedom of Expression. It has to be real online and off line. It’s the same.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: We have ten minutes left. I can see three hands. One there, one there. One there.

Let’s just sweep around and get – pick up these questions. Please be very brief in your interventions so we can get through the maximum number of people, and then I’ll come to the panel to have closing remarks.

>> AUDIENCE: Nigel Hickson at ICANN. I want to go back to the discussion on democracy and who rules the Internet. I’m part of this traveling circus, I suppose, that goes –

>> EMILY TAYLOR: So am I.

>> NIGEL: That’s all the people in the circus. Having a traveling circus is not the best, but it’s a representation of the people. This is a great panel to ask this question. We take the multistakeholder approach I think for, you know, we – we just engage in it. And we take it – we just take it for granted. But there are parallel discussions going on at the ITU and at the UN which are not multistakeholder. So I wonder how the panel thinks that the Internet will be regulated in the future. These two forces, which one will win out?

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Thank you. So just hold on to that. Next please.

>> AUDIENCE: Yes, thank you very much. My name is Elfa and I’m working for the Media Commission in Iceland.

I would like to go back to the discussion that Mats Svegfors and Carl Bildt were discussing about the democracy, freedom of information and media. And I would like to take it from that point that we are now increasingly seeing people just reading maybe the posts or the tweets or by people who have maybe the same opinions or that they trust and are now maybe not using the mass media in the same way. We’re also seeing that search engines are getting smarter and smarter, which means that if you are searching for something, you are not going to get the same hits as I am, and so forth.

So our world is actually narrowing at the same time as the information is getting broader. And I’m wondering what do you think about that when it comes to democracy and the actual freedom of information?

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Up at the back, do you have a microphone? In that case, we will go to you, sir, and then please get a microphone up there. And then to you.

>> AUDIENCE: I’m the coordinator from the DiploFoundation. As we come up to the end, I wanted to link the two aspects. Marietje Schaake distinguished the two. One is Internet Governance and the other one is the changing environment of representative democracy. I wanted to challenge that and to merge these two. As we are talking about the self governance, I’m coming from Serbia, the self-governance has quite a connotation. We were fighting against that and now we come back to it, observing the case of ACTA, and the European Commission admitted that they made a mistake of not consulting the social media and the voice of the public. It was a case related to Internet.

But we can expect more and more of these cases not only related to Internet, meaning that the voice of the public in fact impacts their decisions on the other levels, meaning that this case of Internet Governance and multistakeholder or the impact can impact also other areas.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Thank you.

>> AUDIENCE: The European Union has value, but China does not. Where do you see it going?

>> AUDIENCE: Mr. Mensa from the Intellectual Property Office of the Italian Government.

Mass media is regulated in two main directions. The first one is to defend individual rights to image and reputation and against defamation. It means that every citizen in western democracy is able to sue a newspaper or a TV in case of defamation. This is not possible with the Internet medias, and I find all of this a restriction of individual rights.

The second main feel of regulation in western democracy’s concern, especially in the case of public television, the regulation of excess of political politicians and to safeguard democracy. In this case it’s media regulated –

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Thank you. Can I just go to the gentleman down here. Sorry to interrupt you. We are keen from time and I want to hear from as many people as possible.

>> AUDIENCE: I’m Victor. I’m nervous sitting behind Her Majesty. I liked your speech.

I’m here with 30 young people from the New Media School. I have an exercise, please guess which country I’m from. I’ll give you a few helping points. We have two-thirds majority in the Parliament, our Government controls users of the mass media and the broadcasting. The state media, actually. We have a media authority who has a term of nine years, nine years. And young people don’t take part of decision-making and they leave the country and we have a Danube.

(Applause)

>> EMILY TAYLOR: So Marietje Schaake will have a go at that one.

>> AUDIENCE: I’m a member of the European Parliament for the party of Sweden. My question is how do you feel the Democratic gap that you have in Europe, not only in Iran, but the fact that there is no European media? And the national media formats are provincial and are fueling nationalism. We have seen that in the past four years, and the local media are filling the Web of the people to know what happens with the tree around the corner.

But my question is: Is it going to be a thorough adjustment of mass media, the written paper, or is it going to be the interim media that will feel this Democratic gap? As a representative of the people of Europe, I don’t have my voice in a national newspaper as a national politician does, although I’m a co-legislator.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: We have two minutes left. I don’t think it’s going to be realistic to run through the panel again, because – but, does anybody want to make one final, final half sentence two-word comment?

>> THORBJORN JAGLAND: Well, actually, right after here I’m going to Oslo because I’m the Chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee in Olso. And I’m going to receive Tawakkol. Think about that, she was isolated totally during 21 years, but now – but she had the strongest voice in the world.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Thank you.

>> THORBJORN JAGLAND: Without Internet. Isolated. What I’m saying is that yes, it’s very important to be on the net. But if you are to be influencing people, you also have to have something to say coming from your heart.

(Applause)

>> MATS SVEGFORS: About the future, it would be a kind of network society. It’s not only saying that will be the case. Traditional media will have its privileges. But in this network, there must be nodes of expertise, of journalistic skill. And if those nodes aren’t there, the democracy will lose its force and its power.

>> MARIETJE SCHAAKE: The answer to your quiz is Hungary. And a few thoughts, we will twin this on Twitter. The multistakeholder model I think will be the most viable one, but we have to make sure it’s not some empty phrase and that it’s inclusive. Also of users, for instance, and that it’s transparent. One of the fundamental challenges that we heard throughout the panel is the tension between the economic models that rely on the availability of information and the market’s ability for information and the public interest of, you know, trustworthy news and information. And this is an increasing tension. Think about what will happen if Chinese venture capitalists will start buying our Telco, our news media, et cetera.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Okay. I’m just going to cut you off there and go to Carl Bildt for a final word.

>> CARL BILDT: Final, final. One of the issues that is going to be important is exactly that. The global Governor’s model of Internet is under threat. It’s been working well, it’s now under threat by the obvious people, but also by some less obvious people. And I think it is highly important for the good forces of the world that happen to be centered around the European Union and the U.S. and a couple of others to be somewhat more alert to the dangers that are there. And that it’s a very difficult model to explain, because it is bloody complicated.

But we have to explain it in terms of what it has delivered, more than how it it actually works. But that needs to be done more aggressively if the success of the Internet and the force that it represents shall be there with us in the future as well.

>> EMILY TAYLOR: Thank you very much everybody. We have to stop there. Apologies if I didn’t get to your questions. Thank you. Thank you to our panel.

(Applause)

>> Thank you to the panel and to Emily. Please stay at your seat for a few minutes more, please. After the break we will have parallel workshop, so please look where you are supposed to be after the break.

And now Her Majesty Queen Silvia will leave the room, so please rise.

And now let’s go to the break.