CEPT’s Com-ITU held a meeting last 18-20 January in Copenhagen. The committee, chaired by Portugal, is responsible for European coordination with a view to participation in ITU activities.
One of the main agenda points was the analysis of results from the last World Telecommunications Standardisation Assembly (WTSA-16) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The Assembly was extremely controversial, whereby the drafting of a common understanding on what happened in Tunisia requires particular care.
This meeting was also devoted to preparing Europe’s participation in the next World Telecommunications Development Conference (WTDC-17), to be held in the last quarter of 2017. Europe continues to develop its overall position for that conference in the scope of work conducted by the project team (PT) created for that purpose, PT WTDC-17, chaired by Paulius Vaina of Lithuania.
The group also decided to create two PTs to prepare for the 2018 Plenipotentiary Conference: PT Policy (to handle policy issues) and PT FIMO (to handle ITU financial, administrative and organisational issues). Com-ITU also agreed on the mandate of those groups as well as the respective chairs: Cristiana Flutur of Romania and Vilém Veselý of the Czech Republic.
Preparations for upcoming meetings of the Council working groups and for the 2017 Council session were also given major consideration.
The next meeting of Com-ITU will be held this coming 24-25 April in Vilnius, Lithania.
The Com-ITU meeting was preceded on 17 January by a meeting of the Steering Committee for the Excellence Centres for Europe, chaired by Sweden. Its aim was to summarise the activities undertaken in 2016 and to determine guidelines for the year 2017.
