Audience takeways, conclusions and next steps – 2009
15 September 2009 | 16:15-17:15
Programme overview 2009
People
- Frédéric Riehl, Vice-Director, Swiss Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM)
- Jean Réveillon, Director General EBU - European Broadcasting Union
- Jan Malinowski, Head, Media and Information Society Division, Directorate General of Human Rights and Legal Affairs, Council of Europe
- William Dee, Directorate General for Information Society and Media Internet, Network and Information Security Unit, European Commission
- Maria Häll, Deputy Director, Division for Information Technology Policy, Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications Government Office of Sweden
Co-moderators
- Lee Hibbard, Media and Information Society Division / Directorate General of Human Rights and Legal Affairs, Council of Europe (CoE)
- Thomas Schneider, International Information Society Coordinator, Swiss Federal Office of Communication (OFCOM)
Messages
Participation and inclusiveness
Participants were very satisfied that participants from all over geographical Europe attended the event, although some thought that it would be good to further increase the number of participants from Eastern Europe in the future.
The participants noted that representatives from all major stakeholder groups, i.e. civil society, governments, youth, academia, industry, media, parliamentarians, intergovernmental and international organisations, were present at the event. There was a consensus in the room, that the participation of all stakeholders, especially from the business sector, should be further enhanced in the future.
In particular the participation of youth representatives and of parliamentarians was considered to be positive and it was noted that more youth and more members of national parliaments and of the European Parliament should be included in the future.
Lively social reporting and remote discussions via online tools (particularly twitter and social networks) expressed the capacity and the need for the enhanced and officially organised remote participation approach and tools in future.
Overall, it was considered important to increase the variety of profiles of participants (for example those representatives of persons with disabilities), further develop professional capacities of stakeholders and to continue ensure multi-lingualism.
Organisation and format
Participants welcomed the positive spirit of openness and interactivity of the discussions at EuroDIG, involving the whole audience in the discussions.
Participants underlined the high quality of contributions and discussions and underlined the need to continue EuroDIG – European IGF meetings that would allow Europe to identify European common ground and European best practices and better feed in the European experience in the global Internet governance meetings.
Future EuroDIG – European IGF meetings should continue to be inclusive and open to all interested European stakeholders. They should build on the modalities and networks created through EuroDIG and should continue to be organised relying on an open-ended and light organisational structure with a flat hierarchy.
In order to provide for sustainability of the dialogue, participants were in favour of having a small permanent secretariat. To this end, the participants welcome the Council of Europe proposal to provide this secretariat and the assistance offered by others.
Future EuroDIG – European IGF events should remain inclusive, open-ended, representative and transparent. The development of national IGF and IGF-like structures and their linking to the regional and global level should also be supported.