The 41st meeting of the EUTELSAT IGO Advisory Committee was held in France last 6 April, chaired by Germany (Dietmar Plesse).
Except for Luxembourg, the meeting was attended by all the states comprising the Committee: France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal and Switzerland. Armenia and Azerbaijan took part as observers. Monaco (Frédéric Labarrere) was invited to participate as chair of the Assembly of Parties (AP).
EUTELSAT IGO executive secretary Piotr Dmochowski-Lipski of Poland reported the activities that have taken place since the last Committee meeting in December, particularly regarding supervision of the company Eutelsat, S.A., monitored by the IGO, whose financial situation continues to ensure conditions enabling compliance with the basic principles and public service obligations incumbent upon the operator.
As usual, the company’s deputy CEO, Michel Azibert, gave an oral presentation to the Committee. He admitted that the group’s financial results continue to decline, emphasising that this was mainly due to lower satellite communication service prices, given that demand for such services has not changed significantly.
At this session, the Committee particularly focused on approval of the new format (more summary and simplified) for its report and on changes to the staff regulations, which required an urgent overhaul. In this phase, a proposed modification put forward by the Advisory Committee chair and the Secretariat was worked on. For the time being, it excludes everything concerning the future pensions system. This agenda point was quite controversial, with the parties finding it hard to reach consensus, particularly regarding the adopted model, based on the staff rules of the United Nations, the general elimination of allowances and the safety of pursuing this task without recourse to consultants and without being clearly sure of the budget implications for the organisation.
In the wake of the decision adopted at AP40 in March 2017, the Secretariat presented a proposed cooperation agreement to be signed by EUTELSAT IGO and Intersputnik. The document must be formally approved by the Intersputnik board, which meets in June, and by the next IGO AP scheduled for April 2019.
The next Advisory Committee meeting was scheduled for 28 September 2018. The following session will be held in the second or third week of February 2019; the last session before the next AP will last for two days.
