[cooperation-wg] On the Communication from the European Commission - eager to hear your views

Dear Alain, dear all,

Responses in-line.

From: cooperation-wg-bounces at ripe.net [mailto:cooperation-wg-bounces at ripe.net] On Behalf Of Alain Van Gaever
Sent: Friday, February 28, 2014 1:30 AM
To: Andrea Glorioso
Cc: cooperation-wg at ripe.net
Subject: Re: [cooperation-wg] On the Communication from the European Commission - eager to hear your views

Hi Andrea,
Thanks for having taken the time to answer my questions.
[AG]: not at all and, in fact, my apologies again for the belated reply.
For ease of readability I will give my main observations immediately below (I will put smaller comments inline).
(1) My initial remark/question on why the Commission’s Communication refers to the “European” Internet was apparently not sufficiently clear.  Rest assured that I did not expect you to give me a legal definition of what is the “European Internet”….
[AG]: as a matter of fact, your question was not what is the "European Internet", but what is the "European Internet industry". Leaving aside for a moment whether a legal definition of the former is possible, the two in my view are not the same.
What I actually would hope to see clarified is that the Commission understands that there is only ONE Internet. And that decisions made by a particular government/community in one part of the network have an immediate and huge impact across the entire network.  So referring to a “European Internet” is in that respect confusing and may I add a bit worrying.
[AG]: since you have made me the courtesy of speaking directly (which I appreciate) let me also be equally direct.
The Communication on Internet Policy and Governance (which, it might be useful to keep in mind, is an official statement to which the European Commission is politically and in some cases even legally responsible) states several times that keeping one single, unfragmented Internet is an overarching objective. See e.g.:

·         "This Communication proposes a basis for a common European vision for Internet governance […] as a single, un-fragmented network";

·         "The European Union has always been committed to the Internet as one single unfragmented space, where all resources should be accessible in the same manner, irrespective of the location of the user and the provider"

·         "Even when faced with complex regulatory or political challenges, filtering traffic at borders or other purely national approaches can lead to fragmentation of the Internet and could compromise economic growth and the free flow of information"

·         "For over two years, the Commission has advocated an approach summarised by the COMPACT acronym: the Internet as a space of Civic responsibilities, One unfragmented resource […]"

·         "The Internet should remain a single, open, free, unfragmented network of networks"
It seems to me that the position of the European Commission is quite clear.
Please also do consider that, as I mentioned above, speaking about a "European Internet" and about the "European Internet industry" (i.e. the "European industry dealing with / based on the Internet", to simplify) are not the same thing.
(2) On my main question around section 6 (which is also being debated on the IAB mailing list) and how the Commission expects to engage with the technical community in practical terms:
My impression is that both the technical community and the government community both feel that they are not sufficiently kept “in the loop”. Yet both parties do make conscious efforts to get all stakeholders involved. Both parties seem to welcome input at an early stage – and have established processes to allow stakeholders to engage.  However it is quite striking that the processes/language used by one party is completely different from the process/language used by the other (You might consider using translators to bridge that gap …)
[AG] I completely agree that the language – and even more importantly, the cultural – barrier is an important one. It would be irrealistic to think that it will ever be completely broken down; but we can certainly take steps in the right direction. Very practically, I'm wondering whether some kind of "glossaries" to explain what each party means when they say "X" might be useful. More than once I found myself surprised at how my, or colleagues', or more generally the European Commission's words (very clear to us) were misunderstood.
It is my understanding that with Section 6 of the current Communication the Commission would like to improve the “government-to-technical-community-process”; which is a respectable objective to have.
[AG] As a matter of fact that's a slight misinterpretation (or perhaps a narrower understanding than warranted) of the text. Let me quote some of the relevant passages of Section 6 of the Communication on Internet Policy and Governance:
"technical details of Internet protocols and other information technology specifications can have significant public policy implications […] [and] it also affects other stakeholders […] even where the technical discussion process is open, key decisions are frequently made by technical experts in the absence of broad stakeholder representation […] an effective multistakeholder approach to specification setting on the Internet will be based on efficient mutual interactions between technical and public policy considerations […]The Commission encourages all stakeholders to strengthen (and where appropriate create) structured mechanisms to allow regular, early and truly inclusive upstream participation, review and comment in technical decisions"
Nowhere in that Section does the Commission say that the process should only between governments and the technical community. Other constituencies, including e.g. academia, civil society etc, should also be in the best possible position to engage.
However while the current “stakeholder-involvement” process (both on the government side and on the technical side) is by no means perfect please do consider that in general terms it works. It delivers. Hence why I want to underline the importance of ensuring that everyone around the table has a very clear understanding of “what exactly” you want to change in this process and “how” you plan to bring this change into being.
[AG] No-one is claiming that the current modalities of engagement are terrible. The question is whether they could be strengthened. I'm sorry again to be blunt, but you heard as well as I did how other governments (not only the Commission) pointed out that the current approach certainly poses challenges for public administrations, for reasons of language / cultural barriers, resources, etc. There is currently an interesting on-going thread on the IETF-discuss mailing list touching upon the possible difficulties of engaging with the IETF (and I'm fully aware that some persons find those difficulties overblown or even necessary to "filter" good participants).
In your reply you describe the key characteristics of a fruitful mutual engagement as being “structured”, “regular”, “early” and “inclusive”; which seems reasonable enough. I know you draw the distinction between “open” and “inclusive”. And while I would like to re-iterate that the existing process in the technical community works pretty well I understand your point of view that this does not mean that it cannot be improved.
[AG] Good, so we agree.
But saying something needs to be improved and actually being able to make that change happen is an entirely different matter. First of all, it needs a deep understanding of “what exactly” you want to change, and I question whether that is already the case.  Secondly once you have established “what exactly” you want to change you need to have a good idea on “how” you are going to make this happen.
You replied that the Commission does not want to be overly “prescriptive”. Yet without having a clear idea on what prescription you plan to administer I am not sure your medicine will have the desired effect. In fact, I would bet it would be a rather bitter pill to swallow … How to avoid creating yet another government process with the associated meetings which in actual fact does nothing to improve the current process at all?
And although I believe the intentions are good, one can only express the hope that the Commission has passed its anatomy exams before its start performing surgery on a healthy patient.
[AG] I think there is a basic misunderstanding here. The words of the Communication – which, again, have been chosen carefully through a long and frankly painful process – do not say that the Commission will administer any prescription. It says that:

(1)     The Commission would like to organise, "together with other interested parties" (among which I'd like to count RIPE NCC and the RIPE community)  "a series of workshops with international experts in law, ethics, social sciences, economics, international relations and technology [which should produce] concrete and actionable recommendations to ensure coherence between existing normative frameworks and new forms of Internet-enabled norm-setting". Recommendations are not binding law.

(2)     The Commission "encourages all stakeholders to strengthen (and where appropriate create) structured mechanisms to allow regular, early, and truly inclusive upstream participation, review and comment in technical decisions". An encouragement to other parties to do something – which such parties might think is a good idea to do, or not; it's their call – is not binding law.
Anyway, the "what" (the goal) is in my view reasonably clear. It remains to be seen whether the various constituencies and stakeholders working on / with the Internet agree. All the Commission wants to do is raising the question and listening carefully, to see if there is any sort of consensus that, indeed, it is worth exploring the issues we are discussing about.
The "how" depends very much on the specific situation, organisation, etc. I personally think that relying only on face-to-face meetings and mailing lists is sub-optimal and that there is space to think how to use ICT tools to ensure a more structured flow of information.
While I realise I might come across as pretty critical (in actual fact I probably am), I do welcome the dialogue and I hope this debate can bring more clarity to this discussion.  I would just like to make sure that we do not fix anything and leave it worse than it was before.
In the Commission’s communication you propose a Workshop. Let’s have one. But let us have one which follows a language/process the technical community actually can understand. Preferably even on the technical community’s playing field – so that a maximum of those who will potentially be affected can engage. Is this something which is on the Commission’s Yearly Work programme? Has the Commission foreseen sufficient financial and human resources to engage with the technical/operational community?
[AG] Yes, let's discuss the best time / format / participation for a workshop (among the several ones we'd like to organise together with other interested parties, see Section 6 and my email above).
Let me however say that I find your words a bit strange. It is not only the technical community who is potentially affected by a discussion on how we collectively can strengthen multi-stakeholder interactions on the topic of "technology <-> public policy" dynamics. So I'm not entirely clear why the discussion should be on the "technical community's playing field" (and I don't particularly like the notion of "playing field", which seems very adversarial to me).
Pardon my bluntness, but I find the approach very defensive and reactive, as if someone was "invading your space".
In terms of financial and human resources: first of all let me reiterate that this should not be a bilateral Commission-technical community discussion. We are happy to play a facilitating role if useful, but it is very important that the scope of participation is as large as possible.
Anyway, on our side we believe we are doing our homework, within the heavy constraints of budgetary cuts to the EU budget and increasing workload. And since you ask, allow me to ask back: has the technical / operational community foreseen sufficient financial and human resources to engage not only with governments / public authorities, but also with other constituencies and stakeholders?
(To be clear, I'd expect a satisfactory answer on both sides would need first a clarification on what "engage" means and what are the metrics on the basis of which we would measure success or failure. So I'd prefer to focus on that, rather than immediately on questions on financial / human resources).
Best,
Andrea
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