Geneva hosted last 13-22 April a meeting of the ITU Council, the body in charge of the organisation's management between Plenipotentiary Conferences (PP). The 2010 Council session mainly focused on preparing the Plenipotentiary Conference (PP10) scheduled for this coming October.
The following issues were noteworthy at this Council session:
- Discussion of the report from the Council working group to draw up a proposed strategy plan and financial plan for 2012-2015. Note that in the 2012-2015 financial plan proposal, estimated spending exceeds revenues by 31.4 million Swiss francs (CHF), about 22.3 million euros;
- Approval of a proposal from the ITU secretary-general to forgive interest resulting from late payments, as well as unrecoverable debts. According to the proposal presented, this relief would cover the amount of CHF 286,926.15 (about 200,000 euros);
- The Council also sought to determine pending issues associated to the structure and operating model for an audit committee. Although the creation of said committee was decided on at the 2009 Council session, Brazil continues to hold that there are not sufficient reasons for creating this group and that existing audit mechanisms should be reinforced instead. As no consensus was reached, the matter will continue to be dealt with at the next meeting of the ITU Council working group on financial questions (FINREG) this coming June;
- Developments regarding the ITU’s interoperability and conformity programme were noted. Given that a number of countries held that some of those developments were too early as there was still no clear notion of the needs, Germany and Sweden proposed that a workshop be held to identify those needs and the best way to deal with them. That proposal was supported by the participants and the question will be taken to PP10;
- The Council noted the need to rework the model for Telecom fairs, based on a shift of focus from the exhibition aspect to the forum aspect. Agreement was also reached on the need to prepare a host country agreement between the ITU and the countries that host Telecom fairs. These proposals will be submitted to PP10 for approval;
- The agenda of the World Conference on International Telecommunications was agreed on, and that same would be held after the ITU World Telecommunications Standardisation Assembly. The ITU Council also considered the fact that said conference requires a more formal preparation mechanism. Pending questions, specifically the number of days the conference will last, will be decided by PP10;
- The study conducted by the ITU secretariat on the financial impact of free online access to the ITU’s Fundamental Texts and to ITU-R (Radiocommunication Sector) Recommendations was examined. Although the loss of annual revenues will be relatively insignificant, the ITU secretary-general called attention to the fact that free access to all information may lead bodies to lose interest in becoming ITU members. The issue will be discussed again in FINREG so that a decision can be made later by PP10;
- A Resolution was approved ruling that the contributions for ITU Council sessions should be submitted up to 21 days before the meeting opens, to enable their translation and appropriate analysis by the members.
The next ITU Council session will be held in 2011.
