The 39th meeting of the EUTELSAT IGO Advisory Committee (AC) was held in Paris last 26-27 January, chaired by Poland (Piotr Dmochowski-Lipski).
All seven states included in the AC were in attendance: France, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal (which took part simultaneously as chair of the Assembly of Parties (AP)), Spain and Switzerland. Germany and Lithuania participated as observers.
The EUTELSAT IGO executive secretary (ES), Christian Roisse of France, reported on activities undertaken since the Committee’s last meeting in December, especially regarding oversight of the company Eutelsat S.A., which is monitored by the IGO and whose financial situation continues to ensure conditions that enable fulfilment of the Basic Principles and the public service obligations incumbent on the operator.
The Committee focused above all on preparing for the upcoming AP (AP40), to be held on 15-16 March in Paris, where three candidates (Portugal, Italy and Poland) are disputing the election for the ES position.
The AC thus approved its report to AP40, which caused a certain amount of controversy, mainly regarding the transition of the ES now in office, proposing a period of overlapping duties with the future ES that could last up to six months. Note that the proposal originated with Poland and was seconded by Luxembourg; at this Committee session they agreed that it should only be a provision for the ES-elect to use or not, as required. This had always been defended by Portugal and Switzerland and it ultimately prevailed.
Given the upcoming retirement of a staff member besides the current ES, the latter presented a proposed revision of the pension conditions, which he considered obsolete and even prejudicial to staff. The AC criticised the fact that the situation had not been detected and reviewed previously and asked for more transparency and participation regarding administrative and personnel issues. The next AP should therefore approve a recommendation asking the next head of EUTELSAT IGO to revise the current staff rules and pension system.
The budgets for financial years 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 were also subject to lengthy debate. Given the company’s poor results, the AC noted that Eutelsat S.A. had asked the IGO to streamline and even cut back its operating costs, due to its declining revenue and the commercial and competition-related difficulties it is facing, like most satellite operators. Also here, the AC requested more transparency and a breakdown of spending, namely with personnel.
The ES put forward a proposed resolution to be considered by AP40 regarding the 2007 Audiovisual Directive of the European Union (EU), proposing a reversal of the principle whereby the country of origin/broadcast remains valid in jurisdiction over non-European TV channels. The responsibility for monitoring TV programmes originating outside the EU and meant for the Union currently resides in the country where the uplink is located. However, during the ongoing review, France has advocated reversing that criterion for determining the responsible administration, given that it is increasingly hard to localise the uplink, which can easily change country.
The AC’s next meeting has provisionally been scheduled for October 2017 (19-20 or 26-27, subject to confirmation).
