Wrap-up and closing – 2014
13 June 2014 | 17:30-18:30
Programme overview 2014
Transcript
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>> There is no break.
>> LEE HIBBARD: We have –
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: The doors are locked. You can’t get out anyway.
>> LEE HIBBARD: Please stay. We have the final session.
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: It will be short. The final session will last only two and a half hours, 2:25, maybe.
>> LEE HIBBARD: Please take your seats.
Okay. Please stay for a little longer.
I’m going to tell you what is going to happen next. This is the final session. Thank you for staying.
Just a few words to tell you what is happening now.
We’re going to have a little wrap-up session to conclude the EuroDIG 2014. We’re going to – I’m going to quickly pass to Avri Doria and after that I’ll pass to Wolfgang Kleinwachter to say some final remarks.
We’re going to look in a few minutes towards the Internet Governance Forum, which is happening in Turkey, in Istanbul, in September. And then we’re going to have a few thank yous.
So just to tell you that some of you – for all the sessions that you’ve been involved with, there has been reporting, there have been a few bullets put to the end of the session. Those bullets, conclusions, will be put together in a series of messages from Berlin. And that’s the reason why you’re here. Those messages will be compiled and will be transmitted from Europe, if you’d like, to the global Internet governance, the perspectives of Europe regarding Internet governance. And so those will be delivered rather quickly.
I’d like now to call on Avri Doria to give a short overview and a few bullets about your perspective as sort of a commentator about the overarching theme, digital society at stake and the future of the Internet.
Look at the overarching theme, why we took that theme, not being maybe European or European at heart. What is your take, what is your perspectives on EuroDIG 2014? Thank you.
>> AVRI DORIA: Okay. Thank you.
So I’ve been lucky enough to sit here and participate, as I say. These are the brief impressions of a U.S. Europhile.
One of the first things, this is a dialogue. A dialogue is between two parties. So who were the parties here? By and large the parties were the people sitting up on the dais and the participants on the floor, unfortunately called an audience sometimes, but really the participants from the floor.
My perception of the meeting is that the measures that have been introduced in this meeting actually did start creating more of a conversation between you all. More than just a dialogue between two parties.
I picked up a bunch of points from the discussion, but there were a few, and I’m just one participant, that I picked up.
The Internet is global and the periodic talk of a European Internet actually runs counterproductive. And I think I heard that from many of you, though at sometimes there were still people that felt that a European Internet would be a good thing. But I think by and large the impression is it wasn’t.
My personal view on that is even if you build one, it will eventually be joined to the Internet and just be part of the Internet like the Internet already is.
That Europe is committed to human rights, but has very diverse views on how to balance these rights and how to enforce them. And a lot of that discussion came up over the days, that there was no doubt of a very strong commitment to human rights. But as the conversations unfolded, the understanding of those, the balancing of those, which were more important, which were less important was varied.
Multistakeholderism means all stakeholders have a seat in the discussion, are part of the discussion. And yet there was really an acknowledgement that at some point in the process, whether it is the technical community, whether it is the legislators, whether it is the business entrepreneurs, that somebody takes the lead when it comes to deployment, when it comes to implementation.
One of the points that came out, it is unclear whether Democratic oversight of surveillance is possible. Multistakeholder work was needed in terms of how to basically do something about that. How to balance the various aspects of security. And the discussion showed that whether it was privacy or whether it was other securities, they are really all forms of the same things. So how they get balanced was a problem.
And the last point that I gathered was that the Internet is a paradise lost. But it was unclear that it was ever really a paradise. But we want it back. And so basically, you know, it’s basically looking at it and saying we should be really careful about the limits that we accept on our online freedoms, as we move along and try that.
I was also asked to come up with a point or two on possible ways forward. Again being a non European, though I did grow up in Europe, but being a non European, it’s presumptuous of me to tell you the ways forward. But anybody that knows me knows that I’m presumptuous. So first I would say continue expanding the dialogue into a multi Log. I think you’re getting there. I think there was so much more conversation, but still at points it gets, somebody speaks, somebody speaks, somebody responds. And it is evolving more to that multi Log.
Continue to work on capacity building, especially for European political leaders.
And then the final thing is I would recommend, though there are points that have come out of all the sessions, in terms of messages to send forward, is pick a European policy goal and focus during the year between now and EuroDIG 2015 as opposed to just planning on the meeting. But actually get some work done in the intermediate time on coming up with a greater statement, a greater message, to the IGF and to the EU. Perhaps something like concrete steps for finding our way to the Internet we want.
So again, thank you for allowing me to comment on the Marrakech Treaty EuroDIG 2014. I truly enjoyed being here.
(Applause)
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Thank you, Avri.
In fact, her comments will be put on the EuroDIG website in a Google or something of the like.
>> AVRI DORIA: (Off microphone.)
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: In a document of whatever kind, where you can actually comment on it and have your say on this as well.
Now, Wolfgang.
>>WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: Okay. Thank you. In ten or twelve days from now in this room there will be the first U.S. German cyber dialogue. And this will be an interesting event, because we had some difficulties between Germany and the U.S. if it comes to cyber issues, and which has been discussed over here during the two days. And when the organizer said okay, how to summarize this, they had a good idea to have an American lady and a German guy to rub it up and then to see the differences.
My problem is now I have no differences, Ms. Avri. And when Avri said it’s difficult to find out what is the European Internet in it’s indeed that we have a global community, we have different approaches from different corners, but more or less we are all sitting in the same boat. The question is do we all move in the same direction or do we have different ideas to work in different directions?
My three messages were said more or less by Avri. I wanted to make it brief and say rebuild the paradise. Reboot Europe. Stumble forward. What I mean is rebuild the paradise. It was exactly the point to the Internet – the Internet in the past was not a paradise. But we had some estimates that the Internet is good and it gives us more freedom and more human rights.
And what we have learned also during these two days is that nearly everything in the Internet is connected to human rights. And the good thing with the human rights we have learned from the Council of Europe is that we have already all legal instruments there. There is no need to reinvent human rights. It’s already there. It comes from the good old times. But as we fortunately have achieved in the Human Rights Council of the United Nations is that people have the rights, human rights, online, that they have offline. And I think this is so simple. But we have to make use of this.
And I think this was very, very useful, that we discussed all the big threats now and big challenges. We did not touch intellectual property rights too much. But this is another challenge, where human rights will be discussed in the future. And I think this is a very important message that everything has to be seen from a human rights perspective. And this is also laid down in the NETmundial principles, human rights comes first.
Reboot Europe. This is indeed, there is no European Internet. But Europeans are not so strong like the Americans when it comes to the use or the application of Internet services. So there is a lot of criticism against Google and Facebook and all of this. What I saw yesterday was that the Chinese search, Bideu, has started a process of internationalisation. So they started a French service, one for Brazil, and probably better a German service for Germany. So that you have probably then a choice, if you do not like Google, you can go to Bideu and then you have a Chinese search engine. Is this a very good solution? Should we start to look for a European alterative? Where are the Europeans in this big game? We had a big economic session here. I think for the first time in EuroDIG that we discussed this more business oriented details.
So we need this young generation, and I’m happy that more young people than ever came to the EuroDIG meeting. Probably for me, I’m in my 60s,a 30-year-old person is a young person. But probably we should invite all the people, teenagers in their 20s, because they represent the future and they have a different approach to this and we should listen to them. Because they will have the opportunity to reboot Europe. And we should make it as easy as possible for them. And not to protect the past, but to open the doors for the future.
And the last thing is stumbling forward –
(Applause)
– and the last message is stumbling forward. I think this is a fantastic definition from Bill Clinton when he was asked what Internet governance is. And he said it’s stumbling forward. There is no master plan. We are moving into unchartered territory. We have to find a way, you know, how to build this unchartered territory. And what to do with this. So this is step by step. There will be no big jumps. There will be small steps and we have to accept that we go step by step and slice by slice.
And the NETmundial pushed the whole process further forward. And the process of multistakeholder model is now more and more accepted. But there is a risk in it, in particular for the young generation, which did not go with the process of the last 10 or 15 years in a fight for multistakeholderism. For them, it’s very natural that they can raise their voice and say they are part of this community.
And that the Foreign Minister from Germany says okay, we as a Government, we are part of this broader community on an equal level. We queue up in Sao Paulo and get two minutes to speak. So this is new, but for a newcomer, this is a given fact.
And then we should be very careful not to over stretch the discussion on multistakeholderism and to treat it as a religion. The multistakeholder processes should move from reflection to action. We should exercise. It’s important to clarify first the concept and understand how it works. But it’s much more important to do it on a day-to-day basis in our – when we deal with the issues.
So stumbling forward with small steps on the basis of the multistakeholder model is probably a good guideline for the next years.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)
>> LEE HIBBARD: Thank you, Wolfgang. Thank you, Wolfgang. Thank you.
This week in Geneva, it’s a very big week for the UN and for the Internet Governance Forum and the WSIS+10 review. It’s a very important week for the future of Internet governance globally and that’s a very important point. Because we’re looking now to the next step. The next chapter is Internet Governance Forum in Istanbul. I’d like to call on Chengetai to say a few words, and I’ll just raise it up a bit for obvious reasons. Thank you.
>> CHENGETAI MASSANGO: Thank you very much.
First of all, thank you. I go to many regional Internet Governance Forum initiatives and I never cease to be amazed by the depth of the discussion that I find at EuroDIG. And it’s also an innovative space. There is always something when I come here. And sometimes we do copy those to the global Internet Governance Forum.
I would also like to congratulate the host Eco,the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, and the Federal Foreign Affairs Department, and also to Sandra. She is working very hard in the background. Wolf, Lee and Thomas, and of course the team.
Thank you.
(Applause)
It’s really been outstanding. Outstanding.
Now, for the Internet Governance Forum 2014, which as Lee said is going to be held during the first week of September, in Istanbul. And the main theme is connecting continents for enhanced multistakeholder Internet Governance.
In this IGF, we are instituting some of the changes that resulted from the report on the improvements to the IGF from the Working Group report, and also taking up some of the challenges that were presented to the Internet Governance Forum from the meeting in April, the NIC endow meeting.
One of the challenges that was pointed out, because to further integrate the regional and national IGFs into the global IGF, and we are going to have an inter-regional dialogue session at the IGF.
But I also do encourage all the national IGFs that are here to contact the Secretariat, register at the Secretariat, join our mailing list. We have an inter-regional IGF’s mailing list. And help us work together on how we can integrate the input from the regional and national IGFs into the main IGFs.
We also are planning, from this IGF, also, it has to be a two-way process for the national and regionals to feed into the main IGF and also back and forth. So that we get a feeling of the distinction and the main concerns of the regional and International IGFs.
We also have best practice sessions that we are trying a new twist to this time around. We have picked five of them from developing meaningful multistakeholder mechanisms, which I’m sure you’ve been a part of and you can contribute to that best practice.
Two, child online safety. And we are going to have some mailing lists. And in the IGF website we have a community site where we’re going to start intercessional work and discussions on these best practices, in a view that after we hold the best practice sessions at the IGF 2014, we are going to produce a booklet of best practices, what to do and probably as well whatnot to do. And with these we will distribute them to organizations and they may find them useful.
Also, joining in for the IGF, if you cannot come to the Istanbul IGF, we do encourage you to come and participate online. We have – we make a great deal of effort to our online remote participation. And you can join in. We have also got a YouTube channel that people can watch, and it’s very easy. There is no time lag with that.
For organisations, there is the IGF village, and the deadline to have a booth at IGF village is the 30th of June. In the IGF village we are also going to have a speakers corner. So if you did not have a workshop or a best practice session or an open forum, there is still a space for people to come and have their say and present any initiatives there at the IGF village. We will have a sign-up sheet and people can sign up for a 30-minute time slot and they can speak.
Registration for the IGF 2014 is going to start by the end of this month. So please just watch the IGF website and you’ll be able to register. If people need any help with Visas, the host country has been very gracious. And if you have any problem, there will be contact numbers for that.
With that, I’ll end. That was short, right?
>> LEE HIBBARD: That’s perfect.
>> CHENGETAI MASSANGO: Any questions?
>> LEE HIBBARD: Thank you, Chengetai. Thank you for your help.
(Applause)
>> LEE HIBBARD: Now, we have to – Michael, come up, please, Michael Rotert. Thank you very much. Thank you for coming a bit later. This is the main man. He is the main man. Without Michael and his team, this would not have happened. Michael, the floor is yours.
>> MICHAEL ROTERT: Thank you very much. I think that this EuroDIG has again shown how multifaceted the Internet is as a technology and as a medium for communication. But also how numerous, when I watched the discussion, just this afternoon, the unanswered questions and challenges are, which we are facing in connection with the Internet.
In short, we can only meet these challenges in dialogues and in concert with all those involved, stakeholders from industry, politics, academia and the Civil Society. And to give you some numbers on these stakeholders, we had 770 registrations. We had about 500 people here yesterday, or per day in parallel, roughly. Today a little bit less. And from these 770 registrations, roughly the four major stakeholder groups are 120 plus or minus 20. So there are nearly equally equipped from these figures. And the people came from over 67 countries.
These are some figures. We will of course – this will be sorted out and published on the website, just to give you before you travel back home some figures to report.
Europe has now, and this is what has shown by the discussion not only today but also yesterday, Europe now has the opportunity but at the same time also the responsibility to take on a stronger role on Internet governance in the future, and to push for the recognition of basic European values in the digital society.
And I would like to encourage the Council of Europe, for instance, when I see this development with all these figures, to facilitate more solid and long-lasting arrangements in view of the support of the various Committees, including the CDMSI, or the CDMSI or the Committee of Ministers, and I think that this is worthwhile to strengthen the organisation of EuroDIG.
When it started in 2008 there were only 200 something attendees. And now 770 registrations. And I think now it’s time to move to different organisation, and to longer lasting institution.
No matter, by the way, what happens to the International global IGF, if it disappears, Europe can still stick to those values we are working on, we are discussing.
At this stage, I would like to thank the German Federal Ministry of Economics, I don’t see anyone from there, which had the patronage this year. And of course our – the Foreign Office, which made these magnificent rooms available to us. And from the Foreign Office – I need a microphone or not.
I need a microphone.
She was the ghost working in the back. Kathy.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)
Without her support, it wouldn’t have been that easy to come in and out and all these things.
But anyway, the rooms and the facilities here are very good for this event. And underlined, also, hopefully, the results.
Many thanks of course also to the entire EuroDIG team, around Lee and Thomas. And we have a lady on your team as well, Sandra.
(Applause)
She is the one that without her you wouldn’t have been able to do this. Thank you very much.
(Applause)
And of course, Wolf. I didn’t forget you. Thank you very much as well.
(Applause)
And of course my Eco team. I can stand here and give nice talks, whatever, but without my team, I’m just nothing.
So there are a couple of – and – you see a row of ladies. It would take hours – you have both – thank you very much, Sandra, for the support. She is the head of the Berlin Office of Eco.
(Applause)
Thank you very much.
(Applause)
Thank you very much. She was the ghost in the back.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)
Next one. Next one.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)
So, those were the ladies listed from the team. And as I said before, thank you very much for the tremendous work you had in setting this up and making this EuroDIG 2014 the huge success.
Thank you very much.
And Wolf?
>> WOLF LUDWIG: Well, I will just hand it over to Lee immediately.
Just to make clear, once again, that the event is one issue, and what you had – you had the pleasure to attend the last two days. The other part is a process. So next EuroDIG starts now. So – and it goes to Istanbul as we said. And afterwards we have a call for proposal and the programming for next year starts immediately. And in this entire process, there were two more people closely involved, three more people closely involved for a long period of time. And without their support all this wouldn’t have been possible.
This was not meant that you fall when I call Lorena. Please, come up. Hey. Come here.
(Applause)
She was in charge of the new instrument we introduced, what was a wiki. She was extremely supportive on all levels. She worked a lot with us and without her support it wouldn’t have been possible.
There is Farzaneh Badii, please. She is in charge of remote participation. She is also one of the great souls in the back.
(Applause)
And without her, nothing like this could have been made possible.
And Sebastian –
>> I think he is gone.
>> WOLF LUDWIG: He is more or less coordinator of the digital facilitator.
(Applause)
Sebastian Haselbeck. They are all great for the process and I think we can count on them for the next process for 2015 as well.
No flowers.
>>This is gender discrimination. We will protest at the next EuroDIG.
Or create a Working Group.
>> LEE HIBBARD: Okay.
>> MICHAEL ROTERT: Let’s finish rather than discussing gender equal and flowers for men in the future. Let’s see. Maybe we will make it a topic.
Without money you cannot run such an event. So many, many thanks to the sponsors who finally made this EuroDIG event happen.
Also the major sponsor, DE-CIX where also the technicians are from, who made the WiFi available. For me it worked. And I have not heard any complaints that it has not worked. So give a hand to the technicians for the WiFi please.
(Applause)
And last I would like to thank you all, the participants, locally as well as remote, if we still have remote people. You are the soil and voice of EuroDIG. Without participants, the stakeholders are missing, Huh?
And, finally, before the event is over, I’m already looking forward to the next EuroDIG, which will take place next year in Bulgaria. And on that note I would like to officially hand over the EuroDIG flag to Iliya Bazlyankov from the CORE Association.
(Applause)
Here, you have it.
>>ILIYA BAZLYANKOV: Thank you.
(Applause)
I’m really happy that the next meeting will be in Sophia. Because it will help also the local community to become more engaged in the discussions. It was a great success with the multistakeholder discussion in Bulgaria, and it was the IDN project which some of you know hasn’t happened. The meeting next year will be most likely in June, which proves to be a good month.
I would like to invite you to all come to Sofia. And now I’d like to show you a short video of Sofia.
(Video)
So we hope to see all of you in Sofia next year. We don’t have a date, but that will come up.
Now, 2014 EuroDIG is over. Someone has to thank Michael, the person in the middle. You’ve seen him and know who he is, thank you very much, Michael, and your team. And one reaction to the flower discussion on Twitter and the EuroDIG team. There are no bosses, we are just one team. And the women get flowers, maybe the men get a German beer later tonight and then we are all happy and get what we deserve.
Thank you so much. Enjoy Berlin. And thanks to Lee of course as well.