Statement of Germany
by Mr. Horst Ehrnsperger
Director-General for Telecommunications and Post
Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology

Mr. Chairman
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
May I first take this opportunity to congratulate you Mr. Chairman to your election of this august Plenipotentiary Conference. I am sure that under your able chair-manship this conference will achieve its goals in a most efficient way.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

the economic process of globalisation, the political processes of liberalisation and privatisation, and the technical process of convergence of the media are in full swing. All of them will be decisive in helping to shape and influence how we get along with one another in the future.

In this connection, the world's governments are faced by the following question:

What is the best way to enable the ITU to continue to play a prominent role in the field of international telecommunications to the benefit of its members?

In this context, I am particularly thinking of two points:

The first point relates to the opening of the ITU to more participation by private commercial enterprises in the decision-making processes in their sectors. The ITU is the oldest specialised organisation of the United Nations. It goes back to the In-ternational Telegraph Union founded in 1865 and its structures were created at a time when, throughout the world, the operation of telecommunication networks and the offering of telecommunication services were unanimously viewed as tasks of government. In the meantime, many countries have come to regard this as a normal private-sector activity. Germany came round to this view more than ten years ago, and we are proud that we have had one of the world's most liberal tele-communication markets since the beginning of 1998.

Ladies and gentlemen, this shift in responsibility for operational matters from the state to the private sector also shifts responsibility for the creation of standards in telecommunications. We are firmly convinced that we have no choice but to take account of these global changes in the ITU. Governments must be willing to aban-don some of their traditionally dominant roles, particularly in the standardisation sector, and to allow the manufacturers of telecommunication equipment, network operators, and service providers to participate to a greater extent in decision mak-ing. Germany therefore supported all such proposals to the ITU's Working Group on Reform. However, ladies and gentlemen, I cannot hide the fact that we in Ger-many are most disappointed by the lack of progress made on the participation of the private sector in decisions in the ITU context, and by the lack of movement on this issue since the last Plenipotentiary Conference in Minneapolis in 1998.

The second point which Germany believes is of great importance for the future of the ITU refers to the future area of ITU activities.

Convergence is causing traditional telecommunications to be increasingly linked with the medium of the internet. The internet and its services are affecting ever broader areas of our professional and private life. The move into the information society is already dominating commercial and social life in many countries around the world, and it will increasingly change and direct societies in the coming years.

The German Government regards the internet as an important part of national in-frastructure. Governments must therefore ensure non-discriminatory access to internet services for their citizens and companies. Also, it is our view that the state's responsibilities include the security and stability of the network, the protec-tion of personal data and the protection of intellectual property rights.

These principles lead to the legitimate call for the management of the internet to take account of such requirements. We regard the ITU as the appropriate forum for an international co-ordination of these questions. In view of the technical expertise of its members from the private sector and from its 189 Member States around the world, the ITU seems to us to be virtually predestined for this role. Germany can also imagine a discussion of the concerns of all interested governments in the con-text of the administration of internet domain names taking place in the ITU. Ger-many welcomes the fact that the ITU has taken the initiative to hold a World Summit on the Information Society.

Ladies and Gentlemen, in the framework of the Council and the ITU Working Group on Reform, and within the CEPT, Germany participated intensively in pre-paring for this Plenipotentiary Conference. Germany will continue to work in the interest of the ITU. We are once again seeking to be voted onto the ITU Council, on whose shoulders a large part of the responsibility for future decisions is placed. Germany will be participating in the budget of the ITU with 30 contributory units in the period up to the next Plenipotentiary Conference.

Ladies and gentlemen, in closing I want to express my sincere thanks for the fine preparations by Morocco, our host country, which have made a successful Confer-ence possible.

Allow me to offer to our host government and, in particular to you, Mr. Chairman, our best wishes for the further success of the Plenipotentiary Conference.