[WSIS CS-Plenary] Report from Intersessional Negotiation Group - 28 October (morning session)

Fri Oct 28 16:18:39 BST 2005

Dear all, 

Find below a report from today's morning session of the Negotiation Group.

Best regards,

Jette

Intersessional Negotiation Group, 28 October - morning session

This morning the Negotiation Group began with outstanding issues in
Political Chapeau and Chapter 2. Then the governments carried on with
Implementation and Follow-up and finished the first reading of DT26.

Political Chapeau

The delegations agreed that the name of the document will be "Tunis
Commitment."

Para 3 was not discussed as agreement on this will probably need to be found
within a bigger package.

Para 4-5:

Norway reported that informal consultations had identified where the
governments disagree, but agreement had not been reached yet. Ghana had
proposed to draft a new text based on para 4 and incorporating elements from
para 5. Karklins concluded that it would be difficult to reach agreement on
this paragraph today and decided to postpone the negotiations to the first
day of the resumed PrepCom-3

Para. 9 on the "leading role of governments"

UK stated that they had conducted consultations, but they had not come to
agreement with the delegation (Russia) that put the paragraph. The paragraph
will go to Tunis in brackets.

Para. 12:

The chair had conducted consultations with the most interested governments
on this paragraph and chair's proposed text was agreed without discussion.

Para new 23A (former 43):

Agreed referendum as US asked for the possibility to come back later on the
day.

Para 32-33:

El Salvador reported that they needed a little more time to come up with a
language. The Negotiation Group will revisit it at 3 pm.

Para 34 and 35:

UK presented a new para 35, mentioning that one nation still had
reservations on the second part of the new paragraph. The new EU proposal
was not adopted, but the delegations agreed to let it substitute the
existing paras 34 and 35

Para 37:

EU could not accepted the word "commit" and proposed it replaced with
"strive". Egypt objected to this and was asked by the chair to come with new
proposal and consult with EU on it before 3 pm.

Para 38:

deleted

Para 39: New proposal by Brazil and US.

Agreed without discussions.

Para 45 was not discussed as it is pending on the results of the
negotiations on implementation and follow-up.

Summary:

Para 12, 23A and 39 was agreed or agreed referendum. 

Para 3, 4-5, 9, new 35 and 45 will go to Tunis in brackets.

The negotiation group will revisit 32-33 and 37 this afternoon.

Financing Mechanism

In chapter 2 three outstanding issues remained: para 20, new 27B and 37F

Para 20 and 20A was not resolved. Para 20 will go to Tunis with "transfer of
technology" in square brackets and in para 20A it is still not agreed on
what terms the technology transfer shall take place. The developing
countries insisted on "preferential terms", whereas developed countries
wanted "mutually agreed terms". Both Egypt and the chair came up compromise
proposals and despite a long discussion, agreement was not reached

27B on good corporate governance of Transnational Corporations will be
revisited at 3 pm, where the G77 again will be asked to agree to delete it.
US, Canada, Israel and Australia asked for deletion and UK (EU) stated that
also CCBI had asked for deletion. Karklins asked the G77, if they could
accept a deletion as it would be difficult to reach agreement also at the
resumed PrepCom. Honduras stated that they would have to discuss it within
G77.

37F:

Agreed with deletion of "existing".

Implementation and follow-up (DT26)

Para 31 (indicators):

The chair proposed new text, where the paragraph was divided into two new
subparas. On a request from G77 new 10B (9B from DT9) had been moved to the
section on indicators. 

Subpara a) and b) was merged.

Subpara e) was deleted as almost identical to c)

Dominican Republic propose a reference to "indicators that measure gender
digital divide in its various dimensions" in 31, but it was proposed that
this should be incorporated in 11d instead, when this was revisited
tomorrow.

31A:

Mali and Senegal had reservations on 31A, as they did not want to approve
the Digital Opportunity Index, before it had been launched.

UK proposed a rewording that was placed in square brackets

31b:

Was first agreed, but then the "(Agreed)" was removed again by US 

Para 32 and 33: 

Agreed

34 (stocktaking):

South Africa wanted to change "a" to "one of the valuable tools" to
underline that the Stocktaking Report is not the only option.

UK found the last sentence too prescriptive and wanted to change it to "we
invite all countries to gather information at the national level". Canada
supported, but Senegal objected to the deletion of "mechanism" 

As only 12 minutes was left Karklins cut off the discussions and asked if
the delegations could adopt the paragraph as it stood. As they could not, it
will go to Tunis in brackets.

35:

Will go to Tunis in brackets

36: 

Cuba "We decide to make an overall review of the implementation of the WSIS
outcome by 2010."

Iran proposed the amendment of the word "annual".

Karklins replied to both that he would not accept such amendments in this
paragraph as the described report was purely procedural. The issues should
be addressed in the negotiations of

Agreed.

The afternoon session will start with 32-33, 37, deletion of 37b of
political chapeau and then continue with implementation and follow-up.
Karklins stated that if quick agreement was not reached on a paragraph this
afternoon, it would go to Tunis.

Jette Madsen
CONGO - WSIS CS Secretariat 
11, Avenue de la Paix
CH-1202 Geneva
Tel: +41 22 301 1000
Fax: +41 22 301 2000
E-mail:  <mailto:wsis at ngocongo.org> wsis at ngocongo.org
Website:  <blocked::http://www.ngocongo.org> www.ngocongo.org 

The Conference of NGOs (CONGO) is an international, membership association
that facilitates the participation of NGOs in United Nations debates and
decisions. Founded in 1948, CONGO's major objective is to ensure the
presence of NGOs in exchanges among the world's governments and United
Nations agencies on issues of global concern.  For more information see our
website at www.ngocongo.org <blocked::http://www.ngocongo.org/> 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman-new.greennet.org.uk/pipermail/plenary/attachments/20051028/ab406c36/attachment.htm