[Chapter-delegates] European Union’s Connected Continent Regulation

[Halbersztadt Jozef (jothal)]

Dear Colleagues,

Is any European chapter consulted by the government on Network
Neutrality? What about a joint panel at IGF Istanbul in September?

European Parliament amended the draft of the regulation. Its
provisions on Network Neutrality were strengthened. This proposal is
now reviewed by the EU Council (national governments). The EU Council
at ministerial level will meet in early June.

We (ISOC-PL and FOSS Foundation) have been invited to the Polish
ministry of digitization for discussions on the Network Neutrality
stuff. The meeting was crowded with telecom industry people. They
claimed that market is healthy and any additional regulations are
redundant. They didn't like separated specialized services, because
only integrated premium services allow them to raise enough money,
they need for investments. Government people sympathize with them as
the local branches telecom giants (T-Mobile, Orange etc) are paying
more taxes compare to global players of online advertisement business
(Google). Still the officials emphasized that withdrawn from NN as
such is an unrealistic demand.

At wider forums, in media the balance is different. Voices of our
grass root technical / civil rights communities, representatives of
small business are prevailing. They influence government too.
Therefore the current government position is neutral.

Have you any idea how we should act together to make the EU Parliament
position to prevail?

Regards,
Józef Halbersztadt
-- 
'JotHal' jozef [dot] halbersztadt [at] gmail [dot] com
Internet Society Poland http://www.isoc.org.pl