[cooperation-wg] IP Interconnection – expertise wanted - providing information to the European Institutions

Let us take a few steps back.  ;-)

When I first started turning up at RIPE - which was a few years ago! - the attitude was that as the meetings were open anybody who wanted to turn up could do so. And that obviously included government folk. There may also have been the feeling that as "the Internet is not regulated" then the need for involvement with governments was low.

There has been a definite change regarding that latter point and indeed, as the recent proposed Regulation and as the "leaked" Communication make clear, better contact is more and more required.

In parallel there have been changes in how that contact has been organised. A particular WG, the Cooperation WG, was set up and NCC organised Roundtables. 

I seem to remember that early roundtables were organised at Schipol to make it as easy as possible for government people to attend. When even that was seen to have its limits then the Roundtables were organised in Brussels. From what I have heard that works. Not only do people from the Commission attend but also people from other states who either work in Brussels or travel in for the day. And by the way, picking up on Roland's point, it is probably more the familiarity of Brussels as a destination than allows people from out of town to attend rather than the issue of expenses. They can also add in some side meetings which adds value. So all in all the Roundtables are appreciated and working.

There have also been efforts to get people to come to talk to the WG. That has been perhaps less successful. But we have had Commission staff making presentations. And perhaps with this fresh start we can bring new ideas. More on that later.

The WG though is about people coming together either at RIPE meetings or here on the mailing list - and not necessarily at a Roundtable. It is about sharing information and concerns in those two main WG contexts. And when warranted it is about communicating common views and concerns to others on behalf of the WG. 

Of course individuals may decide that they have a particular concern and decide to take it up with their local regulator or government or with the Commission. It good that people do this. Maybe they could even share their experiences!

I think though that it is recognised that there is a problem with small groups of people or even individuals going to Brussels and claiming to represent the WG - unless of course there has been discussion and consensus on the message to be passed. Maybe other people think otherwise. Maybe we need to discuss this
 
I also have a variety of problems with the notion of "free consultancy". I won't try to cover them all here and now.

But the Commission spends a lot of money on acquiring information: from research projects, to studies, to workshops, to consultation processes. So they are paying people. They are also surrounded by a mass of local lobbyists all also giving them information. A lot of groups either have offices or people in Brussels, including ISOC, CENTR and ICANN. So many people in the Commission probably think they are already getting all the information they need. So we in turn would need to be clear about the added value and who would do the work and what process we would use and so on.

And by the way the Commission has continued to send people, and sometimes significant numbers of people, to meetings considered more important, such as ICANN and the IGF.

So what can be done within the WG to engage with policy makers?

1) We now have two co-chairs who have very good knowledge of the Commission. I think it would be good if the co-chairs wrote seeking a commitment to send somebody to future meetings - not necessarily always the same person. I think the scope could include, as appropriate for different meetings, Internet governance, telecoms regulation, broadband initiatives and research.

2) I think it would be useful to expand the scope of those we invite. Involving local government folk has already proved useful. So who in Poland? And other organisations. The OECD has done and is doing interesting policy work. Then we have folk from BEREC and ENISA and the Data Protection agency.

3) I think we can also use "proxies". People have said to me that they find Commission documents "difficult". So why not invite people who have already analysed them to make a presentation? A good presentation and a good discussion may encourage people to go back and look again. I would also be tempted to consider inviting ETNO or GSMA or ETSI.

4) Finally I think it would be good to invite other groups to talk about their policy concerns and what they are doing in that direction. The people are probably already there. But Euro-IX? CENTR? ISOC?

This is of course in addition to the excellent feedback we tend to get from people going to the IGF and the EIF and so on.

Pause...

Gordon


On 11 Dec, 2013, at 11:08, Roland Perry <roland at internetpolicyagency.com> wrote:

> In message <CANeNdN+yL6MQyJw-totvNVf4pMV1ivLy9DXyYRZE8b9=hcDvWw at mail.gmail.com>, at 21:45:53 on Tue, 10 Dec 2013, Alain Van Gaever <avangaev at gmail.com> writes
>> Next to the RIPE NCC Roundtable, there might also be value to actually go and talk to the officials in Brussels who prepare the legislative texts. From experience I would argue that those are NOT necessarily the same people as those who attend the RIPE NCC Roundtable meetings
> 
> That's right, the Roundtables are more for invitation-only  "Heads of Department", who are also the people who can more easily arrange to spend a day out of the office 'on expenses'[1].
> 
> I never organised a Roundtable in Brussels, but it would make sense to me that it should be slightly more of an 'open house' for local officials.
> 
> Perhaps the date for the Roundtable has been chosen as the day after an EIF meeting, so there might be more industry folks in town that day too.
> 
> [1] The difficulty of which is often much underestimated, and is a major
>    reason for poor attendance at a 2hr RIPE-WG session in an 'exotic'
>    location.
> -- 
> Roland Perry
>