Governing digital interdependence – the role of Europe – FS 02 2021

29 June 2021 | 14:45-17:30 CEST | Studio Bruges | |
Consolidated programme 2021 overview / Day 1

Title: Governing digital interdependence – the role of Europe
Proposals: #9 #29 #34 #36 #54 #56

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Session teaser

The past few years have brought a spread of divergent Internet-related legislative and regulatory frameworks around the world, the emergence of digital sovereignty ambitions and initiatives, and the intensification of technology-driven competitions between countries. These influence the perspective on the role of Europe in this. During this session different perspectives will be shown and discussed.

Session description

The focus session format is new in the EuroDIGs history, this three-hour session will dive deep into the ever-changing global legislative and regulatory frameworks. The first 45 minutes will be filled with perspectives on this changing environment and the development of the European Soverenity. Perspectives will be given by representatives from the public sector, academia and private sector.

After a small break, the audience will be divided into multiple breakout rooms where the discussion amongst each other continues under the leadership of the key participants.

After that, the session will be concluded with a debriefing from the breakout rooms into the main room and a discussion about the outcomes and differences.

In this session, the following questions will be answered by the panel speakers and you as a participant.

• What does all this mean for the global nature of the Internet and the future of our digitally interdependent world?
• How do we reconcile tendencies towards digital independence with the calls for improved digital cooperation at the global level?
• Where does Europe position itself in this landscape?
• And what is the key to governing this digital in(ter)dependence in a manner that benefits society at large?

Format

The key format of EuroDIG is about dialogue, this session is developed to create discussion on the highest level. This session is divided into three parts of 45 minutes, the second focuses on developing full discussion in smaller groups, the third session is about understanding the others' perspectives in a debriefing.

Input session
14:45 – 14:48 (3 min): Introductions by moderator and session format.
14:48 – 15:08 (20 min): Speaker introductions on European frameworks and sovereignty.
15:08 - 15:13 (5 min): Reaction from key participant.
15:13 - 15:25 (12 min): Discussion with whole audience + closure

Break: 15:25 - 15:40

discussion session 15:40 - 16:25 (45min): discussion in breakout rooms

Break: 16:25 - 16:35

reporting session

16:35 - 17:05 (35 min): Reporting from breakout rooms + discussion
17:05 - 17:15 (10 min): Closing remarks

Further reading

Links to relevant websites, declarations, books, documents. Please note we cannot offer web space, so only links to external resources are possible. Example for an external link: Main page of EuroDIG

People

Please provide name and institution for all people you list here.

Focal Point

Focal Points take over the responsibility and lead of the session organisation. They work in close cooperation with the respective Subject Matter Expert (SME) and the EuroDIG Secretariat and are kindly requested to follow EuroDIG’s session principles

• Auke Pals

Organising Team (Org Team) List Org Team members here as they sign up.

Subject Matter Expert (SME)

• Sorina Teleanu

The Org Team is a group of people shaping the session. Org Teams are open and every interested individual can become a member by subscribing to the mailing list.

• Auke Pals
• Riccardo Nanni, University of Bologna
• Hendrik Ike, GÉANT
• Vittorio Bertola, Open-Xchange
• Wout de Natris, De Natris Consult/DC-ISSS

Speakers

• Dr. Erik Huizer (CEO GEANT) - Academia/technical community

Erik has been GÉANT CEO since July 2017.

Erik has a long-standing involvement with the NREN community and was previously CTO of SURFnet, and a member of the GÉANT Association Board until he stepped down to take up the CEO position. Before SURFnet he served as Managing Director for ICT at the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO).

Erik has fulfilled various board-level functions of Internet related organisations and for over 30 years has been involved in education and research networking, Internet standardisation and Internet governance. For his contributions to the Internet he was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2014.

• Marina Kaljurand (Member of European Parliament) - Public sector

Marina Kaljurand is the Member of European Parliament since July 2nd, 2019. Kaljurand was a member of the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Digital Cooperation (2018-2019). She was the Chair and Commissioner of the GCSC (2017-present). Kaljurand is a member of the UN SG`s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters (since 2020).

Kaljurand served as Estonian Foreign Minister (2015-2016) and as Ambassador of Estonia to the State of Israel, the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Canada and the United States of America.

Kaljurand served twice as the Estonian National Expert at the United Nations Group of Governmental Experts on Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security (GGE), in 2014-2015 and in 2016-2017.

Marina Kaljurand graduated cum laude from the Tartu University (1986, LLM). She has a professional diploma from the Estonian School of Diplomacy (1992) and MA from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University (F95).

• Dr. Götz Brasche (CTO Cloud Europe, Huawei Technologies) - Private sector

Is responsible for the research activities of Huawei's Cloud division and Central Software Institute in Europe. At the Munich Research Center of Huawei he is member of the senior management board and runs the Intelligent Cloud Technologies Laboratory. Dr. Brasche holds a master’s degree in Computer Science with a minor in Business Administration and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering. He joined Huawei in December 2013 from Microsoft where he co-founded the European Microsoft Innovation Center (EMIC) in 2003. At EMIC, Dr. Brasche led Microsoft’s Cloud Computing Research engagements in EMEA and initiated the establishment of the Microsoft Embedded Systems Development Center to facilitate an integrated R&D approach of Microsoft in Europe. In his prior roles at EMIC as Director Embedded Systems R&D and Program Director, he was in charge of EMIC’s collaborative R&D activities in the fields of »embedded and mobile computing« and EMIC’s overall research program management. Back then, he was involved in more than 20 national and European co-funded research projects. On invitation of the Federal Ministry of Research and Education (BMBF, Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung), he contributed to the German research agenda for embedded systems as member of the corresponding committee. Moreover, he acted as chairman of the corporate members of the industry association of ARTEMIS, a Joint Undertaking and public-private partnership in the area of embedded systems between key European R&D actors, EU member states, and the European Commission and served on the ARTEMIS Steering Board. In the earlier stages of his career, he held various management positions at Ericsson and pioneered Ericsson’s partner program for Central Europe which aimed to foster the mobile Internet market through evaluation, design and marketing of promising mobile application and solutions. At Ericsson he was also involved in sales of solutions for the emerging Universal Mobile Telecommunications Systems (UMTS). While at the Ericsson Eurolab Germany, one of Ericsson’s major European research centers, he played a decisive role in the development and standardization of future mobile communications systems and was in charge of the commercial pilot implementation of one of the first world-wide General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) networks. As research assistant in the Department of Communication Networks at RWTH Aachen University, Dr. Brasche explored various aspects of embedded systems and mobile Internet as early as 1992. In particular, he looked into packet oriented speech and data services for existing and future mobile networks. His numerous publications prove he is knowledgeable in innovation management and ICT technologies. As one of Huawei's first interdisciplinary competence centers in Europe, the Intelligent Cloud Technologies Laboratory deals with AI, Big Data, and Cloud Computing technologies and embedded and intelligent computing systems. In joint innovation projects with partners and customers, Dr. Brasche and his experts develop and validate new products and services. An ideal environment for Dr. Brasche to realize his vision of a customer-oriented, profitable business and open and efficient R&D which leads to utilizable technology rather than producing dust catchers for the archives.

Key Participants

• Olaf Kolkman (Board Member Global Forum of Cyber Expertise, Principal Internet Technology, Policy, and Advocacy at the Internet Society.)

Olaf Kolkman is the Principal - Internet Technology, Policy, and Advocacy at the Internet Society. He is a senior advisor to, and spokesperson of, the Internet Society. He formulates, reviews and advises on technical and policy positions.

Olaf has a long experience in Internet technology and policy matters, in particular those related to security and trustworthiness of the Internet. He is a board member of the Global Forum on Expertise in Cyberspace and a commissioner of the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace.

Moderator

• Auke Pals

Remote Moderator

Trained remote moderators will be assigned on the spot by the EuroDIG secretariat to each session.

Reporter

• Dr. Jamal Shahin

Reporters will be assigned by the EuroDIG secretariat in cooperation with the Geneva Internet Platform. The Reporter takes notes during the session and formulates 3 (max. 5) bullet points at the end of each session that:

• are summarised on a slide and presented to the audience at the end of each session
• relate to the particular session and to European Internet governance policy
• are forward looking and propose goals and activities that can be initiated after EuroDIG (recommendations)
• are in (rough) consensus with the audience

Current discussion, conference calls, schedules and minutes

See the discussion tab on the upper left side of this page. Please use this page to publish:

• 30 April 2021, 13:00 - 13:30 CEST

In this meeting we confirmed the teaser, session description and format

• 17 May 2021, 14:00 - 14:45 CEST

In this meeting we started our call for speakers and key participants

• 9 June 2021, 12:00 - 12:30 CEST

In this meeting we confirmed the speakers and key participants and are proceeding working on the format on the breakout session

Messages

• The EU’s strength lies in its focus on a human-centric, collaborative approach to the internet.
• European values can be promoted through development of open and interdependent standards within and outside Europe.
• Specific and targeted regulation is necessary, but too much emphasis on the EU’s regulatory power is counter-productive.
• Digital Sovereignty is not about isolation but about accountability mechanisms.
• Frictionless data portability is a functional requirement for end-users to benefit from individual digital sovereignty.
• Risk management, security technology, and legal instruments are building blocks for trust.

Video record

https://youtu.be/IVclij8iDPs?t=17613

Transcript

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This text, document, or file is based on live transcription. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART), captioning, and/or live transcription are provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. This text, document, or file is not to be distributed or used in any way that may violate copyright law.

>> NADIA TJAHJA: Hello, everybody. The next session is Focus II, Governing digital interdependence - the role of Europe and moderated by Auke Pals.

>> REMOTE MODERATOR: Good afternoon. I’m your remote moderator.

We believe in open dialogue and we would like you to follow certain session rules which will be on the screen. Firstly, if you – if the display name in Zoom is not the full name yet, we ask you to rename yourself now.

Secondly, you will have the chance to ask questions, make comments later on in the session and when the time comes you can ask for the floor by using the raise hand button on Zoom. Alternatively, you can write messages on the chat where other participants will be able to see and they’re not live streamed where the video is available on YouTube.

With that, I’m looking forward to the discussion. We’ll be here in the background to make sure it is a good-spirited, inclusive discussion and I would like to hand over to the moderator.

>> AUKE PALS: Thank you! Good afternoon!

My name is Auke Pals, I work with GEANT supporting research and education. Today I’ll moderate the session here at EuroDIG. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. One promise, in the timing, we will overrun! That’s not our fault I guess this time!

The session you have signed up for, it is a different type of session, it is so-called a focus session, it has an input part, where we organized and invited three excellent speaker, the first, Erik Huizer, COO of GEANT; the second is Marina Kaljurand, a member of the European Parliament; and the third, Gotz Bratsche, CTO Cloud Europe of Huawei Europe, and not forgetting in the special role, we have got Olaf Kolkman, who is the principle of Internet Society to reflect on speakers’ input and to provide some contribution. With that contribution, we would open up the floor for discussion which we’ll hope to continue in the breakout rooms in the second part of the session. I would like to introduce my fellow professor, Jamal Shahin, jumping from breakout room to breakout room drafting messages from the session.

With this, I would actually like to introduce today’s topic. It is partly introduced already by former speakers and also in workshop I, and it refocuses that in past years we have brought the spread of divergent Internet related regulatory frameworks around the world which has an impact on the sovereignty, the ambitions and the initiatives, and with this intensification of the driven competitions between the countries, this has an influence on the role of Europe and also on how we act with that.

We have prepared four questions that our speakers will answer and you as participants, you have the opportunity to answer as well in the breakout sessions.

For the first perspective, I would like to introduce Erik Huizer, CEO of GEANT and give him the floor.

>> ERIK HUIZER: Thank you.

You should be able to see my slides.

>> AUKE PALS: Excellent. Yes.

>> ERIK HUIZER: I have taken liberty of having four slides, each with a question, one of the four questions you asked.

The first question you asked, what does this all mean for the global nature of the Internet and the future of our digitally interdependent world? The autonomy, I think, that regions are seeking can help to prevent the dominance of big platforms that may very well be a great threat to the global nature in the interdependency.

If you look at education, for example, of course, we operate in the area of research and education. In education you see especially due to the pandemic that a lot of educational institutes moved to online teaching, of course, and that they are using – a lot of those are using software or cloud services delivered by the big platforms like Blackboard, Google, et cetera, and while that is practical and handy, usually very affordable, it also forces the educational institutes to adjust to the values of the platforms instead of being able to keep their own public values. The values of each region in the world are different, European values are different from Asian value, different from African values, different from North American values and probably if you Zoom in, each country has their own values that they want embedded in their education system. These values, they are often embedded in software, et cetera, which makes it very difficult to create that autonomy.

The second point I will make, it is users may benefit from more choices which are assured by autonomous in the infrastructures. If we have different underlying infrastructures which are autonomous that should allow for more competition and more choices for users. At the same time, from a European perspective, you want to make sure that we don’t become fully dependent on non-European infrastructure and software. We need to make sure that the knowledge, but also the tools and the infrastructure are available in Europe with a high-level of confidence that we can run that in an autonomous way. It doesn’t mean that we won’t be interdependent or connect, it assures a level of confidence that we’re in control.

The second question was, what does this all mean for – sorry, how do we reconcile the tendencies towards digital independence with the calls for improved digital cooperation at the global level? The thing is, these are not necessarily contradictory. You can strive to have autonomy, sovereignty on infrastructure that’s important for Europe, while at the same time remain open for the exchange of data with the rest of the world.

As long as that’s done in a reciprocal way and in an open way on both exchanges, I think we’re open to that exchange, we’re open to that but it has to be done at the same level of independence I would say.

Of course, for that, it is – it is very important to define open and interdependent standards that’s always the basis for a global Internet and that will help us to continue to separate infrastructure, hardware, software, et cetera, from the communication itself. You know, you can have your own hardware, your own software, you use opensource, et cetera, and it will incorporate with someone else’s software, which has been developed in their – under their autonomy.

Where is your position in this landscape? I think we can all say that Europe has missed out on the platform economy. I think there is also a good side to this. Europe has taken a strategy to focus on the more human-centric approach. Europe is trying to let international players work according to the rules of the European Union that are there to protect the interests of the Chief Evangelists. I think the GDPR is a prime example of that. It has forced a lot of big international players to finally start paying attention to the privacy needs of the individualized needs of the users. Europe is terrific in collaboration, going slow because it requires consensus building between different cultures and nations and this has led to a dominant position in the world. The research and education of the world want to connect to Europe, we’re the centre of the world in that sense.

What is the key to governing this digital interdependent or independence in a manner that benefits society at large? There’s no single key, of course. There are several that are important.

I think we need to be strong on our European values for privacy and data protection, openness, sustainability and know this is not a contradiction, you can have protection and privacy and still be open. We need to be strict in using open standards and make open software available such that applying the open standards is done – can be done with trusted software that is available for low cost.

We need to provide platforms, public and for research and education that support European public values in teaching and communication and data exchange. The one that I find particularly important, it is that it may be seen as somewhat detailed but I think it is very important to our autonomy, and independence in Europe, still being able to connect globally and to work globally and we need to invest in and co-own connectivity to other parts of the world, subsea cables being a prime target there. This is according to the data gateway proposal from the European Commission that will be implemented hopefully.

This is essential to me. Most of the subsea cables out there currently are owned by either the Big Data platforms, Google, Facebook, et cetera, or by non-European industry, Telecom industry operators and they’re seldom, if ever owned, or even partly owned, by European organizations. This makes us very vulnerable since most of the cables are faux being dominated by the platforms.

Last, but not least, we need to invest in security and digital identity to prevent non-European entities from attacking our infrastructures and attacking our democracies, of course.

These are the points I want to make.

Back to you.

>> AUKE PALS: Thank you very much, Erik.

I find it good to hear that you also see the values of all countries are different and the open standard approach. I may be even happy that we missed out on the platform economy, but that we’re having a human -centric approach, I guess that’s valuable that we have that in Europe.

With this, I would actually like to introduce Marina Kaljurand, a member of the European Parliament since July, 2019 and was a member of the under Secretary-General’s high-level panel on digital corporation. That’s a whole mouthful!

She was Chair and commissioner of the Global Commission on Stability of Cyberspace.

With this, I give the floor to Marina.

>> MARINA KALJURAND: Thank you.

You can stay with Marina, much easier.

A pleasure to be part of this discussion and also because my country was the one that hosted EuroDIG in 2017 and as a foreign Minister, I had the pleasure of inviting everybody for EuroDIG 2017.

You mentioned my recent capacities, but before that, I was for more than 25 years in the he is tone Yan government, diplomat and a foreign Minister, I have the privilege of knowing how government works, how different multi-stakeholder organizations work and needless to say, so good to see you again. We’re running from meetings to meetings together and I was really proud and happy to be the commissioner together with Olaf on the cyber Commission on cyberspace. It is easy and difficult to speak of this, easy because I can say I agree to what Erik said and stop there.

Difficult, because I do not have the PowerPoint presentation or any such systematic presentation, but I’m going through my notes. As a form diplomat, I’m not going to follow the order you gave me! I will follow the order that I like and am happy to share my thoughts and remarks on the questions that you posed.

To start with, I would like to comment on three points: Digital topics on the agenda of the E.U. during and after corona crisis; second, can E.U. lead and be a global role model of what they did with GDPR, also very successful; finally, a couple of words about corporation from the widest sense of the word, corporation – cooperation with other stakeholder, inclusiveness, cooperation with other stakeholders and other countries on multilateral level in the U.N. in other organizations.

Cybersecurity challenges, attack of critical infrastructure and also the information which has become much easier with our social media platforms with digitalization.

It also has brought new topics to the table in a new light. Digital sovereignty, autonomy, and I fully agree with Erik, for me, the question, it is is how far do we go? If you compare it to other conversations which are happening today in Europe, it is the health Union, the European army, so we see the need for strategic autonomy not only in digital topics but many other topics because the COVID crisis has been very eye opening. It has been eye opening in the sense of Europe to show how dependent we are and do we want to be so dependent in the future. My solution or my – my understanding of digital sovereignty is to be strategically – to be able to be strategically autonomous and promote E.U. values and fundamental freedoms. It is a combination of the two.

The pandemic has also brought topics like COVID certificate to the discussions in Europe and for me this is a real test case, how can we cooperate. For years we have been talking about digital single market, digital service, I have not seen so far enough political will of any cooperation, real cooperation in that field. For years we have talked about digital IDs, years about 10 country, they have them, they’re not operational in trans-European context. For me, COVID-19 certificate is a test case, are we going to be able to introduce in practical life something that’s reasonable, that’s useful, that’s workable throughout 27 countries? The next step being then expanding it to the third countries, the future. What’s the reality? In June, only 7 countries were able to start with the document before the deadline, deadline will come in two day, the first of July, bullets see how it is going to work and that for me will determine also the digital future of Europe, are we going to be able to really produce something useful with our citizens with strategic documents.

An example of the E.U., again, agree with Erik, GDPR is something of its kind. Lots of criticism coming from Europe, lots of criticism coming from the other side of the Atlantic, lots of criticism about Europe again regulating something because yes, we’re known for regulating things. We love to regulate, we love to over regulate.

I’m not a fan of regulations as such for regulating, but I would argue that GDPR, with that, E.U. is a global role model because whatever we’re discussing digital topics today, data governance, digital service, digital markets, the basis, the bottom line is GDPR, all of the next acts, next regulation, they have to comply with GDPR. Yes, I do think that E.U. can be a role model also in the next phases. For example, the way that we manage big social media platforms or we like to call them very large online platforms, VLOP, what is the right balance between freedom of speech, assembly, content moderation. I’m a social democrat in the parliament, our position is clear, no automated filtering. Full stop.

No mandatory automated filtering, full stop. If some companies are doing it voluntary, we can’t stop it. In that case, we have to be very firm that there has to be human oversight.

The final decisions should be made by a human. There has to be clear distinctions between legal content, illegal content, harmful content. We should not put them in the same definition or the same mechanism. There has to be different mechanisms. For illegal content, the same principle, what is illegal offline is illegal online and treated in that way.

I think that E.U. can play also a leading role here.

I think that E.U. can be a leading role in cybersecurity when we’re talking about MIS review and talking about certification of digital products, then the certification line may be something that the others may follow at a later stage. I do see E.U.’s leading role with certification, standardization.

My final remarks on cooperation, in digital world we can’t be an island, even if we’re 27. Being 27 is a huge plus, but, of course, it is also a challenge. 27 different jurisdictions, 27 ways cooperation. We’re proud of having single market, but come on , do we really have a single market? Try to start business in Italy? Try to start business in Greece and compare it to starting business in Estonia. It is day and night.

So, yes, we do have different languages, we do have different bureaucracies and it is an obstacle and is for the offline world same as it is for online world.

I’m a shadow Rapporteur for the Digital Services Act and I’m looking forward, how are we going to agree on the substance and how are we going to go to negotiation was council on the Digital Services Act because there are many things where we can benefit – where we can benefit from in the E.U. and there are also challenges.

The global arena, E.U. has been always vocal and should be very vocal on international law, on norms of responsibility state behavior, on fundamental rights and that’s that E.U. has been strong and vocal and has to continue being.

E.U. has to cooperate not only with like-minded United States, Korea Japan, Canada other countries, E.U. should be much more open to the developing world. Unfortunately, we’re losing there. We’re losing to China, we’re losing to others. That’s not right.

We have to be able to explain that the way how we do see, the like-minded way of the use of ICT, digital revolution, it is the right thing to do.

I very much hope that we’ll be much – that we’ll be able to reach out more in substance to the developing world with capacity building and accountability measures and so on.

Of course, we have to be with like-minded countries. We have to be much more strict. We have to be much more dedicated and committed against those who violate agreed laws and norms.

I’m a strong believer in attribution. I’m a strong believer in collective attribution. I’m proud that E.U. and NATO have crossed steps and have started with these first steps. The bad guy, they have to know what happens if they violate the agreed law, if they violate the agreed norms. Otherwise, I do not see that we’ll be able to guarantee free, open, resilient, affordable, so object Internet. What we’re saying in words.

My very last sentence, and part of inclusiveness, it has to be multistakeholder model. It means cooperation with governments, private sector, academia, Civil Society and others. I hope that finally we have understood it, at least we’re writing about it in all of our policy documents. Now I want to see real application and real impact in real life, real world. So after this meeting, meeting stakeholders to discuss with them the future of the Digital Services Act and political advertising and targeted advertising and trust me, these discussions are not easy.

Thank you.

>> AUKE PALS: Thank you very much! I’m happy to have you here in this multistakeholder audience. I hope that we can have this debate in the future many times.

I really like to see that we have common ground with the human -centric approach. One remark I also find interesting, it is about the digital single market and I hope you and colleague cans try to improve and with us all, together, to improve this position in Europe, and also trying to make the bridge to the global environment.

With that bridge, I would like to make a bridge to the next speaker, Gotz Bratsche, CTO Cloud Europe, Huawei technology, responsible for the research certificates for Huawei’s central and software institute in Europe. I would like to give you the floor.

>> GOTZ BRATSCHE:

Interesting discussion so far. Before I talk through a couple of slides, which also gives you some introduction into all of the complexities and the global ICT company, in order to let you understand why is it important, how complex is it for a company to operate between the hemispheres and then also in an environment where we do not have a single market but many different regulations and definitely also a lot of discussions.

This morning, when I opened my mail, I was reminded about healthcare,, there was a questionnaire, it was on how to evaluate, assess the usage of advanced technology for the sector. Is that okay, just five minutes, so let me run through that. I read the questions and what the speakers have rightfully remarked, from the ethical, trustworthy, value-based economy, which is where we buy in, we have to have the open standards and the connective through the stakeholders, that’s fine.

We have to think about how can we enforce the compliance when we think about the digital work.

That’s fine. A comment, it was a bit missing here, but it is that we have to also understand technology and that’s not simple. In particular when you think about all of the federated distributed systems that we have, where we would like to apply the data economy, governed by a nice model and framework, so we have problems to understand how to regulate that and to come up with something that does not prevent in the business in the final end, creating wealth and we have to understand also the technologies, what we need and do we understand all of the technology. My title here, the trustworthy federated data service, what Europe at the moment is trying to do I think, it is to go away from the infrastructure which is dominated by the hyper scalers, to a digital economy that’s controlled by GDPR, so on, trustworthiness in that sense and artificial intelligence, it is at the moment something that’s not well understood because ethics, compliance, expandability, auditability, the like, the new technology, it is still in research.

When I had the early discussions, what kind of things can be contributed to the panel? Maybe I just open the scene a bit so that one can understand what I’m driving now here from Europe as a representative of a global yet China-headquartered company, offering and selling ICT technology and services.

I will not be able to talk too much in detail, we don’t have the time, but I still have a couple of slides which would show you where we come from, what we would like to achieve, which is in line with my speech with the other speakers.

Some links, where we are in the complexity, we’re about 200,000 people, we operate in 170 plus countries, around the world. We do a lot of spending in our collaborative fashion. We’re engaged in new projects, we work a lot with academic partners and also with the authorities to drive more or less some technology to something which is it complying with the future regulation and existing regulation. That’s the glimpse of where we are.

Now I’m representing the cloud which is not so much known. Many people know Huawei from the Internet, world of communication, fixed network communication and the consumer business, smartphones, tablets, wearables.

>> OLAF KOLKMAN: I think we have lost –

>> AUKE PALS: I don’t think.

We’ll see if he comes back.

In the meantime, I hope we can get your perspective on this subject, Olaf.

Could you – if Olaf is there.

>> OLAF KOLKMAN: I am here. My camera seems to be broken.

>> AUKE PALS: Is it in cloud?

>> OLAF KOLKMAN: It is not.

I can work – this is everything coming together at the same time!.

Let me quickly fix the camera issue.

It should be fairly easy to do.

I’m going without camera. It is not important to see me.

It was interesting, I really think we missed out on the perspective from Gotz. The reason for that, when I was listening to this, the themes I was trying to concentrate on, it is in the face of centralization and consolidation, the thing that Europe is trying to cope with in the DSA, the DMA, what are the industry policy mechanisms that will be put in place.

My fear there, it is that regulation that’s put into place to regulate big players actually benefits the big players because they have their own bureaucracy to deal with diversity and regulation with diversity in a non-harmonized environment and have an easier way around that.

The figure of Huawei, 200,000 people, of staff is already speaking. The whole European bureaucracy is 60,000 employees. This is not to corner Huawei, Huawei is an innovative organization that clearly has an important footprint on the digital world.

We’re coping with this place where Europe wants to be exemplary and set a level playing field, so to speak, for the human values. I heard that from Marina Kaljurand, I heard that from Erik, I think that’s an important piece.

What I haven’t heard, it is how do we actually do that without further solidifying or ossifying the existing big parties? I think that what Gotz was about to tell us was something about the initiative that sets out this framework of European SMEs and my question would then be, how do you make sure that within that framework of SMEs, federated system for identity and so on, so forth, you still don’t see consolidation and in the end, a big winner taking it all. Regardless of who the winner is, what winner that is.

Unfortunately, that piece I missed.

Another thing that I have heard, and I really, really, really worry about, indeed, the connectivity of Europe with the rest of the world.

One of the things that made a big impression on me, it is a paper by Jeff Houston, Death of Transit. And that makes the argument that because the big companies, the big Cloud providers, they own the complete data structure, including back hall of – backhaul of data, investments in transit, connectivity between the connectivity on the highest level, basically the long haul, that the investments are lowering that.

I think that if we look at the European data strategy, you don’t solve that particular problem.

How do we keep a Global Connected Internet with sufficient open path to the rest of the world while strengthening the European connection.

I find that an unanswered question and it is an important one. Doing all of these measures, in looking at how we can as Europe become more independent my question is how do we also make a sure that we don’t put a knife in the back of what we see as the Internet infrastructure, the thing that accesses the foundation for all the services and innovations to thrive on.

I think we should be investing in keeping a global Internet and global connectivity, and also offer chances to entrepreneurs and innovators outside of Europe if only to make sure that new opportunities can be built in the Global South.

What are those critical properties? Well, having an accessible infrastructure with a common protocol, making sure that everybody can talk to each other using one particular language, the global language of the Internet, it is incredibly important, we don’t realize that because it is part of the plumbing.

Having that open Internet architecture, those interoperable reusable building blocks, those are the open standards that were being referred to.

Also making sure that we maintain a decentralized, managed – decentralized management and distributed routing system. Make sure that also within Europe, connections with the outside world, there is diversity. If we create points to go in and outside of Europe in the way that we network with each other, that will be a losing proposition. You lose the resiliency that way.

Having common global identifiers, fourth critical property. Making sure that when I type in a domain name, I can still reach the other part of the world.

That’s critically important to maintain a global infrastructure.

The Internet itself, although improvements are still being made and the Internet evolves, in essence, it is a technology neutral, gender-purpose network. That’s also a critical property that you want to keep in place for the Internet. That’s not to say that there are places and networks where you can have highly specialized verticals where it is actually wise to not be on the Internet. Some scale up networks for instance. Specific technology that doesn’t necessarily have to be Internet technology, although choosing for Internet technology may be cheaper in most cases.

Here is Gotz again, he just joined. Maybe, Gotz, I was saying while you were gone, that it was actually very interesting, the ideas around this.

>> GOTZ BRATSCHE: Where did you lose me?

>> OLAF KOLKMAN: In the transition that gave the company, the structure, the 210 employees, and then the next slide. Fairly in the beginning I guess.

>> GOTZ BRATSCHE: Okay. Sorry.

My meeting was still live and I did not see that you lost me.

I’ll repeat that. I apologize for that.

That slide you did see still? Yes.

This as well.

>> AUKE PALS: I don’t see the slide yet on the screen.

>> OLAF KOLKMAN: You’re not in presenter mode.

>> GOTZ BRATSCHE: Okay.

One second.

You saw that slide.

The capacity that we have here, it is that we are having the three major business groups where two of them are very much known. We have the smartphones, the telecommunication, 5G, Internet, then we also have the cloud business, operated in Huawei as a public cloud under Huawei Cloud. Here in Europe we work together with the open Telecom Cloud, Dutch Telecom and for example Orange business group, these Clouds, they’re powered by Huawei technology, based on opensource and ran through all of the privacy security assessments to make sure that we comply with the standard and regulations. That was a heavy effort and obviously we wanted to make sure that data security, GDPR compliance, which is also being put into our daily governance model in China, it is being more or less than one to one math translated into the local European regulation.

Just as a reference, I would share the slides, the Huawei Cloud business, which I’m representing, it is 10 years old. Everything is based on opensource because we strongly believe that the ecosystem also in reply to the predecessors is very much needed for open software and the Cloud, the business here in Europe is embedded in Research, I’m sitting here in Munich, but that the key comment I wanted to make, it is that the interdependency of technology and regulation, the more you think about this ubiquitous systems and the technology, the more complex to map the technology to the regulation. The example here, it is a very simple cyber physical, physical system, and the European regulation, it is still not clear about what happens if there are chips which are being used to produce the intelligence of the software and then maybe the composed system which is being sold will violate the security privacy regulations.

Here the data produce, consumer, liability question are complex. As a company, which is operating at that scale, you really have to understand how in the single fields of the technology, the fusion of that, you will see the impacts to regulation, how can you more or less drive that regulation forward so that it reflects the State of technology. That’s why I just wanted to highlight the rich portfolio in Europe to really understand the entire end-to-end value chain.

When it comes now to the sovereignty, I’m running an initiative for Huawei, for the Cloud but also other stakeholders, of which is covering all of the dimensions which we already have heard before. So we are working on the European and national government level to understand in collaboration with other associations and standardization bodies the government experts and the like what regulation will come up and how we more or less map that to our technology.

For that, you have to contribute actively to the standardization. Here I’m using as an example value X. I think when we look into major initiatives, GAIA-X, it is an example where Europe tries to establish a data economy and the whole digital trust spaces on the underlying infrastructure. That’s why we have discussed before, the inter dependency, it is in my opinion very much related to the service world that we’ll see when GAIA-X is successful. The standardization alone, plus the regulation will not do the job. You have to also work with the opensource community to create the critical mass and then to also be able to validate and certify what you more or less composed with the use cases.

I’m still live?

>> AUKE PALS: Yes.

>> GOTZ BRATSCHE: Good. I will highlight an interesting idea that we have for the opensource community.

The others will take too much time!.

If you think back, how the smartphone evolved, it was a closed ecosystem. Only Apple and Google could provide apps for the smartphone, in particular Apple has a very closed ecosystem and it was the lock in where you either put it on the Apple smartphone or you don’t. Now we are moving to an era where we have more marketplace, open marketplaces where many application cans be ported easily to those smartphones or other end-user devices.

This has to go Cloud, the idea behind that we considered to a certain extent as a possible blueprint from the concept perspective, it is that you have an open service layer, which is based on open APIs that allow you to have a portable area from a service and data perspective requiring that all of the service providers from the infrastructure, expose their APIs so that you can more or less offer this portable data, it would imply there is no lock in or lock out. This idea, at the moment, following with some other partners under the foundation as an opensource community and we would like to more or less understand what drives that forward in validation which we again together with the foundation, other partner, we’re thinking of establishing an open lab for justification for these future concepts of federated data and services. That, of course, it is a requirement which not only is related to GAIA-X but other major initiatives like UHBC or other, just as a reference example.

That’s work in progress. I believe we have to put together a critical mass of people to really transfer the ideas that we have in Europe to something which is feasible, practical for the economy. Huawei is in a unique position to make sure that the European regulation is also adopted in China because we are working together with partners which have a global supply chain. They would like to do business with their supply chain partners, independent of the justification as long as they comply with the regulations. That’s why our idea is also to establish in China, helping to internationalize standardization activities that we have in Europe and stimulate the further discussion with the government, between the governments in order to be sure that we have something which in the final end is interoperable and can work.

With that, I close my talk.

>> AUKE PALS: Thank you.

I’m really happy that you came back online.

I see a parallel, just now Olaf as well had a question on how we could act in a global environment and Erik also touched on that point, while you mentioned, Gotz on the locking of Apple and also on the open market and open cloud and maybe, Erik, I would like to have your perspective on this a little.

Wouldn’t it be difficult for successful providers and successful companies to have an effect of the winner takes it all so that every user, every consumer you go to and platform.

>> ERIK HUIZER: That’s the difficult thing, right? I would love to move away from Facebook t means I have to ask all of my friends to move away from Facebook and that means that all of them have to ask all friends to move away from Facebook and that means everybody needs to move away from Facebook at the same time.

We need to agree if we can do that here, please, 31st of December, coming up, midnight, we all move away from Facebook. Okay. You know, it is really difficult to do that. I think Olaf referred to this, how do you balance, you know, the weight of the big companies? I mean, Gotz was saying Huawei is 200,000 employee, that’s bigger than all of the civil servants of the E.U. together, like was pointed out by Olaf.

How do you balance that?

I think this is exactly where politics needs to focus in Europe and I think Marina already indicated that. It is important that we make sure that in Europe we create laws that protect our values but not overdo it, don’t try to regulate technology too much. It is very, very difficult if you make your law dependent on technology. Make sure that you create just enough laws to make sure that you guard your – protect the public values that are important to you. I think in Europe, the public values, they’re well-known and I think that the European Commission is working on that.

Even then, it is not an easy solution.

It is a balance between commercial and public space, private space and how we find a balance there where we allow companies to innovate, to make a profit, and on the other hand, not to become so empowered they threaten our value, democracy and that we make sure that civilians have a choice in where they want to go and what they want to share, et cetera, and still be able to connect with friends. I can leave Facebook but then I lose my friends.

I don’t have the whole solution, you know, to be worked out in detail as you would really want me to do but I think, you know, if we start at this level, we say, you know, protect your values, don’t overemphasize law and commercial companies like Huawei, take your social responsibility and not only shareholder value and then I hope that we can make steps that will move in the right direction.

>> AUKE PALS: Yeah.

I recognize we can clash, but Gotz, you make as a company, as Huawei, making great services and products, but I can imagine as a commercial company that you just want more and more consumers, that’s what I would have wanted if I had a company.

I guess it could be also rather difficult if governments try to prevent that.

What’s your view on that.

>> GOTZ BRATSCHE: You’re absolutely right, of course. Companies like – there was an interesting Article with Mark Zuckerberg on the increasing role of Facebook, many call it the Blue Earth, Facebook has so many customers that they are the most powerful company in the world from that perspective. Obviously, what’s going on in order to make sure that there is still a compliance is hidden. Now, with the recent activities going on in all the cases, Facebook is opening more the door so people understand the work and complexity and Zuckerberg, when he founded Facebook, he was not believing that he would create something which is even more powerful than government it is you wish to influence the opinion making and also setting standards which may violate regulation or force regulators to be very strict. This reminds me on a presentation I gave in 2006 already about the most powerful economic entities that we have in the world, the top 100, and already then 46 were companies.

So you are right in the sense of the companies strive to maximize the shareholder value, in particular in the non-European economies, the shareholder value, profits, it is I think prevailing while social corporate responsibility is something which is heavily debated, which is different in Europe, and if you ask me what we as international companies do, we try to understand the balance. As I told you, I’m looking very much into trustworthiness of AI with all of the flexibility, fairness, ethics which is ongoing research. In order to also help us, to sustain our business, we have, of course, on one side to do the research to understand the future technologies and on the other hand side to think about the regulation and the impact.

I think in the final end we would like to have a balance, we’re living in this interdependent world and even Facebook is not a real world. You have to have this interdependency, collaboration which we discussed before and I think what’s interesting from an innovation perspective, something that Huawei has been looking deeply into, it is to understand the multisided business models as an opportunity.

You innovate, not only on the customer side, but you innovate on the service side and then the product performance side based on the future of the technology where you have a common vision to develop that further. That’s why the initiatives of the company is important and to be honest, at the moment I believe that very few people have the full picture we want to be balanced, be strict with our compliance values and we don’t fully understand the implications of maybe having a redundant supply chain, differ service offerings in different parts of the world, we do not know whether AI for example will be placed in jobs and what will happen. I think that we’re at the moment in a very, very complex stage where all people have to listen to each other and try to see how we can shape it in the future.

>> AUKE PALS: Thank you very much. Yeah. I guess that’s – yeah. That’s giving a good picture of the balance between regulating and also innovating.

I guess this is a good view on this.

With this, I would also like to open up the floor for questions – from the audience if they are – if people want to join the discussion. Meanwhile, we’ll prepare the breakout rooms that we can start in a couple of minutes.

If there are any questions, raise your hand and speak up.

In the meantime, Olaf, you have a reflection on the last bit?

>> OLAF KOLKMAN: No. There were two things pointed out.

Obviously, as a global operating company, there is a huge incentive to get harmonized regulation on the biggest blocks possible and Europe is a big economic block and having a harmonized view to deploy your market in, it is of course of great benefit to any global operator or even regional operator.

The other thing mentioned, we don’t know it. We don’t know how the future plays out. My crystal ball is as good as Erik’s, Marina’s, and as good as Got z’, probably they all are of a different brand, the crystal ball market unfortunately is still one that’s diverse. We don’t have an Apple crystal ball so to speak. It is very hard to see what the future will bring. I believe what will help us in that sense is a principled approach about what we want to do in Europe, as human-centric, what are the boundary conditions, that is a dialogue where we think about rights, about opportunities, about making sure that we’re inclusive, not only within Europe, but outside of Europe.

It is about frameworks of global connectivity, what’s it mean to have an Internet? That was a thing that I was just rambling on. What’s it mean to have a place in Europe where new players can grow? What’s it mean to have an industry policy that support as a means and where you have new opportunities? I think those frameworks, they will help to give anchor places for the development of both the technology as well as the regulation.

>> AUKE PALS: That’s a good note to end up with.

First of all, I would like to thank Erik, Marina Kaljurand, Gotz Bratsche, Olaf Kolkman for the contributions.

What we will do now, it is to have – we’ll go into breakout rooms and in the breakout rooms you can decide yourself what you want to do, get a glass of water, something like that, and whale do after that, you will head back to the main room and I hope that someone in the breakout rooms can make some notes and present that in the main room in 25 minutes.

Okay! May I ask you to open up the breakout rooms.

(Breakout rooms).

>> AUKE PALS: If things go wrong, who pays for the damage or puts in the effort to design a standardization for instance? We’re in the main room again.

I talked to a guy from a company, and he told me, I’m fine with changing standardization, we have the ability, the resources to implement them. He told me one test cost for them 2 million-dollars. He say, yes, the small part is participating in that.

They don’t have the resources to develop them themselves. It has to do with liability and just money again on how to move forward.

I hope that with this I didn’t kill all of the discussion!

>> ERIK HUIZER: You didn’t. It is a good summary question.

>> AUKE PALS: We’ll move back to the main room? Does that also mean that we already have to round up?

>> NADIA TJAHJA: No. You’re now in the third part of your session. You have still another – one second.

I think you still have until 5:30 to continue discussions.

>> AUKE PALS: Okay.

Possibly people need a break, if that’s the case, take that.

If we have other points of discussion, we can continue the discussion, otherwise maybe close early, that’s also not a bad thing in having meetings online I guess.

>> ERIK HUIZER: I will leave. I have the forum tonight and I need some time to prepare for that.

>> AUKE PALS: Remember the 2020 rule!

>> ERIK RUIZER: Thank you all. I found the discussion very interesting.

We’re far from a solution, but I think it is good to have this discussion and to understand the issues. It is always essential before you can even start to think about solutions.

Thank you very much, all of you, for this session. I really appreciate it.

>> AUKE PALS: Thank you very much, Erik as well.

>> GOTZ BRATSCHE: Thank you for your contribution.

>> AUKE PALS: May I give the floor to you, if you’re ready for that? Yeah, I hope you had the time to write, Jamal Shahin, something down, what we discussed.

>> JAMAL SHAHIN: Yeah.

Thank you.

Hey, everybody.

We’re a few less than we were before. In the meeting room. As the discussion was going on, I tried to summarize some points. I will say hello, introduce myself, I’m Jamal Shahin, I’m living in Belgium currently, dreading the football match tonight. Currently living in Belgium, working at the University of Brussels and the United Nations University as well as University of Amsterdam. I work with the Centre of Democracy and work under the Chair of Digital Sovereignty, a new initiative that’s just been launched in collaboration with a sponsor.

Maybe we could move to the next slide.

Can I do it myself?

Thank you. Okay.

There. That’s better.

I put up some draft slides, draft messages that have come out of the discussion which I thought was very rich; at the same time, very difficult to encapsulate into concrete messages that we would like to move forward.

These are what I think can be used as a baseline. I think Erik finished before he signed off saying we won’t solve everything in this session but we have an awareness of where we’re going. I think there were quite a few terms that came up in the discussion that I have tried to incorporate in these messages. It would one of the things that I heard towards the end, it was an increased discussion on trust which does seem to be a very important area that needs to be built on. Thomas, I don’t know if he’s still there, he had mentioned the idea of trust and contracts not necessarily – was it Thomas or Olaf, just in context, not necessarily meeting each other in a way. However, I think that’s an issue we probably want to put somewhere in these messages as well. However, it is clear that there was important focus, emphasis given on either the human-centric Internet in contrast to the platform-based Internet is what I heard at the beginning. Linking this idea of human centricity to an idea of a collaborative approach to understanding Internet governance, Internet standards, development.

And it was a key message that came out, open, interdependent standards can be a vehicle which European values are promoted in this area. Maybe that’s a bit of a contestable point and should be discussed. Those standards we see them both within and outside of Europe, they’re global standards, how do we actually frame that? There seems to be a contradiction on one hand talking about a digital independence or digital sovereignty or strategical autonomy as it is sometimes referred to and then linking that to the idea of working in the global frame.

The regulatory power that Europe has, sometimes known as the Brussels effect, it is clear that it is useful, necessary, that regulation is necessary, but too much emphasis on the regulation from the E.U. side is possibly counterproductive, I think that’s – one of the speakers mentioned that, I don’t know how everybody in the room feels about that.

What I tried to do is integrate the idea of trust by looking at accountability mechanisms, that’s something that Mark had raised in a comment I think in the chat. I’m just trying to see if the framing here is correct, that we talk not about digital sovereignty as isolation but the creation of accountability mechanisms so that you can actually in a sense, it is about a sort of independence and interdependent world and more about being able to understand where you can – who you can hold accountable, how to do that in this frame.

>> GOTZ BRATSCHE: We also – sorry for not raising the hand.

I think what we ought to discuss is that we have the risk mechanism, not only accountability mechanisms but also risk management which is equally important. It was in the other break I couldn’t tell session, just to comment.

>> JAMAL SHAHIN: Yeah. Yeah. I think – I had heard that as well. I have updated the slide here to put the accountability and risk mechanisms.

That’s important.

Are there any other comments?

>> AUKE PALS: I saw a comment from Olaf?

>> OLAF KOLKMAN: A friendly amendment, I would say specific and targeted regulation is necessary. I think it is really important to stress that, that it is precision work regulation that is then emphasized by saying that too much is not good.

I think I agree with Gotz – sorry, I mispronounced that name.

That trust, risk, it is related to each other. I think it is a different point. it is not necessarily digital sovereignty, I think that a discussion around trust involves risk management, security mechanisms, just as a different point. .

I don’t have the exact words and I don’t want to wordsmith that here. I think it is a different point.

>> JAMAL SHAHIN: Are there any suggestions from anyone else in the room?

Thanks, Olaf, by the way.

>> AUKE PALS: I don’t see any raised hands or activity in the chat.

In that case, Olaf, you can –

>> JAMAL SHAHIN: Well, I’ll perhaps –

>> Thank you for capturing this. It is a difficult task.

>> JAMAL SHAHIN: It is not easy. The subject is so wide, discovers many different types of different thematics. It is very good.

You know, we see the discussions happening quite a lot. I think it is very good to actually push to become a bit more specific in what we’re looking for, asking for specific regulation is much more specific than just asking for regulations.

I’m still thinking about risk management and it doesn’t help if I talk and think at the same time.

>> Perhaps what I typed in the chat.

>> AUKE PALS: Legal instruments, building blocks for trust –

>> JAMAL SHAHIN: Yeah. You know, I was also constrained by the font size of the messages.

I just reduced the size. There we go.

I hope that doesn’t –

>> AUKE PALS: No. No.

>> NADIA TJAHJA: No. Not at all.

>> AUKE PALS: It is common we overrun time and have lengthy messages!

That’s good! That means that we have healthy, good discussion.

>> JAMAL SHAHIN: Peter raised the point about data portability. Of course that’s something that’s been –

>> AUKE PALS: Is there a suggestion as to what to add on the data portability?

>> PETER VAN ROSTE: Yes. Happy to try on the fly, something along the lines of frictionless data portability is an essential requirement for end users to enjoy real choice.

I’m sure people can do a better job at that than I just did.

>> JAMAL SHAHIN: Thinking in terms of the idea of digital sovereignty then, digital interdependence, that’s – how would we frame that in that sense?

>> AUKE PALS: Refer end users to be interdependent on the product or platform or –

>> JAMAL SHAHIN: Chief Evangelist sovereignty, in fact.

If I’m correct, that’s what you’re aiming at, Peter, trying to say, look, actually the sovereignty, the digital sovereignty we talk about in Europe, it is about Chief Evangelist choice, the human -centric. Would that make sense to everybody?

>> AUKE PALS: If I hear no objection, I think we can September. That’s the basis of consensus.

>> JAMAL SHAHIN: I could ask everybody to hum! Hmmmm! It doesn’t work when you’re all on mute anyway.

If that works for everybody, I guess – I don’t know how you feel about that. I have to reduce to font size 12. There you go.

>> AUKE PALS: These are great messages. You did a great job in this difficult discussion gathering those messages.

>> JAMAL SHAHIN: If I may, just – Mark mention that had he wanted to protect the scope for competitive innovation. I think there is a very clear link. Maybe – I don’t know if we have time now or if people are Zoomed out. The idea of linking between innovation and if you look at the EU’s Europe work programme about digital, it is about maintaining the digital sovereignty or the strategical autonomy, whatever you want to call it. There is clear link between innovation and digital sovereignty.

>> AUKE PALS: I guess we didn’t discuss it in the session. It isn’t a message of this session, but we could discuss it maybe tomorrow in another session, and then we can put it in the message over there. If you agree, Mark, on that – yeah, I see thumbs up.

>> AUKE PALS: I guess with this, we’re almost at the end of the session.

I would like to thank Jamal, all of the speaker, participants, for everybody who stays until now. It was really – yeah. I really loved the presentations and the discussion afterwards.

The concept of the session as we mentioned at the start of the session, an experiment, and I guess the experiment has proven that it is quite difficult to keep being engaged for long periods, for everybody, especially for you all, I would really like to thank you for staying, for participating, forgiving wonderful input, and with this, I would like to give back the floor to Nadia Tjahja.

>> NADIA TJAHJA: Thank you very much.

Thank you so much for moderating this session. This has been really a difficult, trying that entire new set up in EuroDIG. I thank you so much for having the courage to take on this project and for having such a wonderful discussion with everyone and in the end, presenting these messages that will be taken up in the EuroDIG sessions.

>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: Can you hear me?

>> NADIA TJAHJA: We can hear you. How are you?

>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: Super! It is a busy day! I think it is a busy day for you as well!

I was just listening to the final remarks that it was a challenging format in this session too, is this what it was or what would you say? Was it – it was a good experiment?

>> NADIA TJAHJA: A lot of commentary and conversations came out of the breakout session, they didn’t want to end to come back to the main room and share in the discussions. There seems to be a need for these different types of venues and formats for people to really explore the different types of communication methods that they enjoy to participate in and we were able to go in more depth with certain aspects of the discussion.

>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: We’re interested in the feedback of every participant. For the focus session especially, it is important to get the feedback from the moderators, the organizer, but also from the participants if this is a format that we should keep for the future or should we change accordingly. I encourage all participants to look out for the feedback form that will be sent and answer these questions. It will really help us to develop this forum a bit further.

Thank you very much! Thank you to the entire time, all participants! As I said, please join us at 6:00 with the magic moment! Don’t go to the football, football match! Don’t watch that! Come to us!

You have to go directly to the Gather room to the theater and click on X on the keyboard and you’ll be connected to the Zoom room of the theater.

Enjoy the afternoon. Soon we’ll have the closing of the day. Everything will be summarized, you can stay in the studio and listen to the summary of the day.

>> NADIA TJAHJA: Wonderful.

Thank you so much.

>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: See you later.

>> NADIA TJAHJA: See you later.

For those of you that would like to know what’s happening tomorrow, there is focus session 3 that will happen tomorrow in this room that’s going to be about new European proposals and cybersecurity agenda and focus session 4 on the media scape, recreating a trusted public sphere.

Thank you very much! Have a good evening! We hope to see you tonight!

>> AUKE PALS: Thank you very much!