This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

211008Z Mar 06

UNCLAS VIENNA 000840 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIDPIS, SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ECPS ETRD ECON AU
SUBJECT: INTERNET GOVERNANCE: GOA VIEWS ON TUNIS, INTERNET 
GOVERNANCE FORUM, AND INTENSIFIED CONTACT WITH THE USG 
 
REF: 05 VIENNA 3594 
 
¶1.  (SBU) On March 18, Emboffs met with Christian Singer, 
Head of the Legal Services Department in the Ministry of 
Transportation and the GoA's Internet governance expert, to 
discuss next steps following the November 2005 Tunis World 
Summit on the Information Society.  Singer said that Austria 
and the EU are content with the outcome in Tunis.  In 
Singer's view, there is "no role for UN organizations to 
play" in implementing the Tunis recommendations.  Singer 
stressed that further discussion on Internet governance 
should build on existing structures.  Singer said that, 
unfortunately, some had focused exclusively on language in 
Article 68 of the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society 
to justify "the special role of governments" in this area. 
According to Singer, Article 72, which emphasizes the 
importance of a multi-stakeholder dialogue is more important 
to the GoA.  Singer underscored that no reasonable 
government wants national authorities to assume ICANN's 
technical function of managing the domain name system. 
However, the EU does advocate more transparency regarding 
the Internet's public policy principles. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Concerning the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), 
Singer maintained that the USG and EU positions were quite 
similar.  However, Singer admitted that there is not yet a 
final EU position on the IGF and that there is still "lots 
of debate" within the EU on how to move forward on the IGF. 
The IGF should serve as a venue to exchange views and focus 
on "a limited number of issues."  In this vein, Singer noted 
that the Austrian Presidency had issued a statement in 
February on behalf of the EU stressing the multi-stakeholder 
aspect of Article 72 and suggesting spam, security issues, 
and multilingualism as appropriate topics for IGF meetings 
in Athens, probably October 30-November 2.  On "enhanced 
cooperation", Singer noted that the EU is waiting for the UN 
Secretary General to initiate the process.  He added that 
 
SIPDIS 
Austria is "not in a hurry" to press forward with this and 
that the EU had no common position on how to proceed. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Singer said that the Austrian Presidency wants to 
intensify discussions with the USG on Internet governance. 
He maintained that several newspaper articles in the run-up 
to Tunis had misrepresented the EU position.  In Singer's 
opinion, more frequent contact would reduce the chance of 
misunderstandings and provide an opportunity to coordinate 
views.  Singer said that the Commission and the incoming 
Finnish Presidency are interested in holding a U.S.-EU 
Internet governance troika.  He added that other member 
states, such as the UK, also supported enhanced dialogue 
with the U.S. in a troika format.  (Comment: We believe 
Singer implicitly suggested a troika format, so as to 
encourage USG coordination with like-minded member states 
prior to the Athens meetings.  End Comment.) 
 
MCCAW