The ninth and last meeting of the CEPT WG ITU project team (PT) in charge of preparing for the upcoming 2006 Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-06) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) was held on 18-20 September 2006.
At the meeting, the group, which had already approved a total of 22 European common proposals (ECPs), finalised five more:
- Proposed ECP to eliminate cross references between the RR (Radio Regulation) and the ITU?s CS (Constitution) and CV (Convention);
- Proposed ECP on the elimination of Resolution 121, which will be an addendum to the common proposal concerning the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITR);
- Proposed ECP listing the PP Decisions, Recommendations and Resolutions to be withdrawn ? work basically of an editorial nature;
- Proposed ECP on the revision of Resolution 70, concerning ITU work on the matter of gender;
- Proposed ECP on the revision of Resolution 34, concerning support for various developing countries, among them some Portuguese-speaking countries.
When these proposals were finalised, by delegation of powers from the ITU Affairs working group (WG ITU), the PT went ahead with final approval of the above-mentioned proposed ECPs. The result of the ECP approval procedure was that the proposals were all converted into new ECPs, which will be sent to all the CEPT members to be signed.
The group also studied another proposal which had been passed on from meeting to meeting: the ECP on the Union?s financial stability. It was nevertheless unable to finalise same, which will thus be dealt with at the next WG ITU meeting, in Stockholm.
The following issues were also considered:
- The structure and chairs of the PP-06 groups ? regarding the chairs of the main committees, the Swiss representative is expected to be appointed head of the finance committee, while there are two candidates for the policies committee, both from the Asia Pacific Telecommunity (APT): Arasteh (Iran) and Agarwal (India). As for the Conference?s modus operandi, the various regional organisations allow for parallel functioning of the two main committees. In order to cut costs, the night and weekend sessions, which CEPT would like to see avoided at all costs, should also function without interpreting;
- Inclusion of the position brief on the Radio Regulation Board (RRB) working methods ? this question was not eventually subject to an ECP, as desired by the United Kingdom, but rather a number of notes concerning the position of Europe, basically with a view to maintaining the current position;
- Inclusion of the brief on Europe?s support for the Canadian proposal on the implementation of Results Based Management (RBM) ? excluded from such support, given other European proposals (ECP14), was reference to Communications Committee (COCOM) intervention on this subject;
- Updating of the brief and position paper, documents which will be used to ?guide? the CEPT countries during PP-06 ? Portugal in particular played a direct role in updating the text on the ITU?s New Council Oversight Group (NCOG) (which warns that the administrations should be prepared for the issue of continuity, despite Europe?s inability to achieve consensus, as it will certainly be debated at the PP) and on all the ECPs, co-ordinated by Portugal, which included information on the proposals from other regional organisations and administrations on an individual basis that concern the same subject matter.
This meeting was once again organised in a manner slightly different from the usual, with the decision to spend one of the days in editing groups that reviewed a number of the documents debated on the first day. The aim was to finalise some of the common proposals and to revise documents, namely the brief and position paper.
Lastly, note that as part of the European preparations for PP-06, only one more meeting of the working group (WG ITU) to which this project team reports is planned. The administrations were particularly urged to be prepared to discuss the following at that next and last meeting:
- Choice between the two candidates to head the policies committee, specifically per eventual clarifications from the Asia Pacific Telecommunity (APT);
- Regional presence, specifically possible support for the American (USA) proposal on this subject;
- The Norwegian suggestion to have precise ideas, before the PP is over, about who should head each of the Council or PP groups, following its (accepted) proposal on the creation of Council groups to cover various issues for which a common denominator is found, as opposed to the current practice (in a which many small groups are established);
- Analysis by each common proposal?s co-ordinators of the proposals from other regional organisations that concern the same subject, with the aim of identifying commitments that can eventually be established;
- And also, should there be any intention to draw up a European common proposal reacting to the proposal from the Inter-American Telecommunications Commission (CITEL) to increase the number of Council positions, it was requested that such only be carried out based on concrete proposals to be submitted at the next meeting.
