EU ICANN statement for WSIS

[Iliya Nickelt]

In its current edition the influential German newspaper "Der Spiegel"
has interviewed Viviane Reding, the EU commisioner for media matters.
(Which apparently also includes information society -- there are so
many EU commisioners these days, there are probably several of them
responsible for any possible topic. Anyway.)

Here are the important answers from this very interesting interview (my
translation, my spelling mistakes). If anyone wants to forward it, no
problem. Maybe it would also be interesting for ICANNwatch.

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[WSIS / US authority]
"The internet is a worldwide network that belongs to all societies and
human beeings. It is unacceptable that it should be controlled by a
single country. [...] All important decisions of ICANN are supervised
by the US DOC. That is also true for decisions that affect Europe, Asia
or Africa. Thus the 25 EU nations unanimously demand a new model of
cooperation for the internet where all interested country are sitting
at one table to discuss the core questions of the net."

"The new US attidute surprised us a lot. Originally the US DOC planned
to withdraw from ICANN supervision in 2006. Now the US suddenly
declared that they demand to continue there historic part of political
control over the internet."

"But the talks continue and I count on the our US partners to see
reason. It cannot be in the interest of the US to use confrontation
instead of cooperation in internet matters. Thus I have strong hopes
that Tunis will bring us closer together. In more general terms the
meeting will not fail because we agree an many other important items"
[ ... digital divide etc]

[censorship by China etc]
"We have to especially include the non-democratic countries in the new
model of cooperation that Europe will propose. If we exclude them, they
will never develop freedom of speech."

Q: "Is this 'model of cooperation' supposed to replace the part of the
US?"
"No, it is meant to to facilitate an exchange of ideas by the countries
of the world about internet key questions. ICANN absolutely has to
continue its technical work together with the worldwide internet
community because this works very well. But governments must not be
allowed to interfere with ICANNs everyday work. The interent does not
belong to governments. Instead, the governmental part is limited to
define values and set a framework to fight deformations like
paedophilia and cybercrime. Politics also has to take care that there
is no prevention free internet access by single governments for their
citizens."

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