The second and last Assembly of the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT) under the Portuguese Presidency was held in Madeira on 9 and 10 September 2003.
The Madeira Assembly, amended the CEPT basic instruments (CEPT Arrangement and Rules of Procedure), following the work developed for the past year on: establishing a methodology to be applied for the Coordination of European Candidates for Elected Posts in International Organisations; clearing the procedures concerning the external relations of the organisation as well as increasing the flexibility of the organisation at Assembly level.
As part of its work in strengthening the relationship between CEPT and other international bodies, a new MoU with the European Commission was presented and endorsed by the Assembly. It will be signed on behalf of CEPT by the Presidency.
The Assembly also addressed the management and financial situation of ITU, one issue that the CEPT membership is deeply concerned with.
Other matters such as: the update of the Rolling Policy Agenda; the cooperation with other international bodies; the preparation of high level international events (Universal Postal Union Congress 2004, the Regional Radiocommunications Conference 2004/05, the World Telecommunications Standardization Assembly 2004 and the World Summit on the Information Society); the PostEurop activities; the implementation of the Tampere Convention; coordination of European candidates for the elections at the next Plenipotentiaries Conference of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) 2006; as well as the improvement of the CEPT?s image, have also been discussed at this Assembly.
The members have been informed that the admission of Belarus should be a reality soon, thus increasing to 46 the number of CEPT members.
At the close of the CEPT Assembly, the Swiss administration received from the hands of the current President, the CEPT?s flag, in a symbolic Presidency Handover Ceremony. The handover will take effect officially on 1 October 2003. On that occasion, the United Kingdom will leave the Troika giving room to the new member - Romania that will hold the Presidency from 1 October 2004 until 30 September 2005.
