Firms attack ‘precooked’ plan for IT charter talks

Date: 23/07/1998

By Peter Chapman

TELECOMS Commissioner Martin Bangemann's plans for an industry-led global charter to police the electronic superhighways are under threat as firms complain they are being shut out of key discussions.

The warning follows a meeting in Brussels this week of information technology firms and trade associations aimed at speeding up moves towards the creation of a 'global business dialogue' which will be tasked with identifying the key electronic commerce issues to be covered by the charter.

Some key players fear preparations for the talks are being controlled by a small unrepresentative group led by Bertelsmann, one of Europe's leading electronic publishers.

Franco Arzano, who represented the European employers' federation UNICE at this week's meeting, claimed the event had been stage-managed by Bertelsmann's chief executive designate Thomas Middelhoff.

"This meeting was set up in a very peculiar way," said Arzano, who is also vice-president of Swedish telecommunications giant Ericsson. He said it was left to Bertelsmann's representatives, rather than the Commission itself or other firms, to outline the planned strategy for making progress on the charter.

"It was very strange. The Commission, with the agreement of Bertelsmann, seems to be running a top-down approach," added Arzano.

Controversy has also been stirred by the timetable for choosing the 13-member group which will steer the discussions, including three representatives each from the EU, US and Japan, and one each from Canada, Brazil, South Africa and Australia, ahead of a meeting in New York on 25 September.

This group, to be chaired by Middelhoff, is expected to prepare the groundwork for a major conference early next year to thrash out a deal on key issues including the taxation of electronic commerce, tariffs, intellectual property rights, encryption, authentification, data protection and copyright liability.

Although a meeting is planned for early September to select the European members of the steering group, Arzano doubts whether there will be enough time for this to be done fairly. "All of us hope that there will be some kind of election, but the word 'vote' has not been mentioned," he said. "It looks like someone has already precooked the matter."

Arzano said it was vital that the steering committee was seen to be as representative as possible of the range of industry or critics of the charter plan, including those in the US administration, would be able to justify ignoring the views of the global business dialogue.

US Commerce Secretary Bill Daley recently questioned the need for a charter at all, arguing that industry should instead throw its weight behind negotiations already under way within the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Intellectual Property Organisation and the World Trade Organisation on common rules for information exchange.

"The whole process should be given legitimacy because it represents the stakeholders in electronic commerce, not because it has been given the blessing of Mr Bangemann," said Arzano.

He is not alone in voicing concern publicly over the charter. The EU Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce will next week call on the Commission and the firms running the talks to make sure the process is open to all-comers.

"The big thing is ensuring there is transparency and that participation in the process is not limited," said Karen Corbett Sanders, regional director of US telecoms operator Bell Atlantic and the EU Committee's delegate. "There are global issues at stake so that means every interested party should be allowed to take part."

Marie-Luise Barth, head of Bertelsmann's Brussels office, denied that there was any conspiracy to keep firms out of the process and claimed that her company was encouraging other companies to get involved in the business dialogue.

She said Bertelsmann wanted to ensure a balanced steering group representing the key sectors in the information society. "We are very much in favour of transparent process. If this was not the case it would reflect badly on Bertelsmann. One thing to make clear is that industry from each region, Europe, Asia and America, makes its own decision over who it sends to the group."