| Jänner | Februar | März | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April | Mai | Juni | ||||||
| Mai | ||||||||
| Mo | Di | Mi | Do | Fr | Sa | So | ||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | ||
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | ||
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | ||
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | ||
| 29 | 30 | 31 | ||||||
E-Mail Service
Medienakkreditierung
Hotelreservierung
Routenplaner
Wetter
Mr. President,
I have the pleasure of speaking on behalf of the European Union. The Acceding Countries Bulgaria and Romania, the Candidate Countries Turkey, Croatia* and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia*, the Countries of the Stabilisation and Association Process and potential candidates Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, and the EFTA country Norway, member of the European Economic Area, as well as Ukraine align themselves with this declaration.
The European Union welcomes the adoption of the resolution on the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and the submission of the report of the Secretary General of the ITU. In this regard, I would like to stress that the inclusion in the GA resolution of some of the provisions contained in the Tunis documents should not be seen as a way to prioritize such provisions over others. The balanced and extensively negotiated Tunis documents must be considered and implemented in their integrity.
Mr. President,
On behalf of the EU I would like to thank Tunisia for hosting the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) from 16 to 18 November 2005 in Tunis. We also want to thank all other participants, in particular the members of the UN family and the various stakeholders who spared no effort to reach concrete results and therefore make the whole Summit a success.
The spirit of the Tunis Summit leads us further along the way from principles to action. In particular, the Tunis documents address the outstanding issues from Geneva on Internet governance and financial mechanisms and furthermore promote the establishment of partnerships between the various stakeholders of the Information Society.
The Tunis documents confirm the consensus reached in Geneva on the WSIS Declaration of Principles and on the Plan of Action. By reaffirming the Geneva principles, the Tunis Summit also restated that freedom of expression and the free flow of information, ideas and knowledge are essential for the information society. The European Union will strive to implement this global consensus on the role of human rights in the Information Society.
In Tunis we reaffirmed our commitment to bridge the digital divide and recognized the important role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in promoting the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. The EU is determined to implement the policy recommendations of the Tunis Agenda in its development policy.
The EU also believes that we need to take a comprehensive view on digital solidarity. While stressing the need to focus on the mobilisation of resources through existing financial mechanisms, we welcome the establishment of the Digital Solidarity Fund (DSF) last year in Geneva as a voluntary and complementary financial mechanism for funding the Information Society.
Mr. President,
The EU is satisfied that Internet Governance has been established as a core issue of the Information Society agenda. In order to address the key elements of Internet governance the Tunis Summit recognised the need for enhanced cooperation to enable governments to carry out their roles and responsibilities and it was decided that a process towards enhanced cooperation, involving all relevant organisations, is to be started by the UN Secretary General and we are looking forward to his initiatives in this respect.
We also welcome as an important outcome of the Tunis Summit in this regard that the UN-Secretary General was asked to convene a meeting of the new forum for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue, called the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). The EU actively took part in the recent consultations in Geneva to discuss the first meeting of the IGF stressing in particular the need for a multi-stakeholder approach. The EU welcomes the announcement that the inaugural meeting of the IGF will be held in Athens, Greece, from 30 October to 2 November this year.
Mr. President,
The EU has stressed the need for a multi-stakeholder approach also with regard to the implementation process of the WSIS recalling in particular the indicative and non-exhaustive character of the list of facilitators/moderators for the action lines of the Geneva Plan of Action as contained in the Annex to the Tunis Agenda.
Likewise, we believe that a multi-stakeholder approach is essential for the system-wide follow-up to the WSIS to be overseen by ECOSOC, in particular with regard to the review of the mandate, agenda and composition of the Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) to be considered by ECOSOC at its substantive session this year.
Finally, the EU is prepared to further contribute actively and positively to the follow-up and implementation process of the WSIS as foreseen in the Tunis documents. We welcome the acknowledgement that WSIS implementation and follow-up should be an integral part of the UN integrated follow-up to major UN conferences and should contribute to the achievement of the internationally agreed development goals and objectives, including the MDGs. We also welcome the ITU-Stocktaking Report of WSIS-related activities as well as the “Golden Book” of new WSIS initiatives launched during the Tunis phase, which was published by the ITU on 24 February 2006. We recognise that governments, international organisations, civil society and the private sector, each have their complementary roles in building the Information Society with a view to enhancing digital opportunities for all.
Thank you, Mr. President
* Croatia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia continue to be part of the Stabilisation and Association Process.
