On 30 May the 4th European Dialogue on Internet Governance (EuroDIG) opened in Belgrade. The event has got together a 300-plus audience from all over the world. Andrey Kolesnikov, the CC’s Director, Marina Nikerova, the CC’s Board Chair, and other CC’s staff represent the Coordination Center for TLD RU
Mirko Cvetkovich, the Prime-Minister of Serbia, Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe, and other officials opened EuroDIG 2011. Ilya Massukh, the RF Deputy Minister of Telecommunications and Mass Media, welcomed the conference participants on behalf of Russia. He congratulated the Serbian colleagues with the launch of the Cyrillic top-level domain .СРБ and expressed readiness to share experiences Russia acquired during the launch of its Cyrillic domain .РФ. Ilya Massukh stressed the importance of respect of interests of all stakeholders engaged in the Internet governance and noted a special role the UN plays in today's digital agenda. In his address, the Deputy Minister of Telecommunications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation reaffirmed the Russian Federation’s commitment to the fundamental freedoms of the Internet. He also cited the need to develop modern methods of effective copyright protection and to ensure protection of interests and rights of children online.
For the first time EuroDIG is held not in Western Europe, but in an East European country. It will last for two days: 30-31 May. Along with the traditional theme of the Internet governance, EuroDIG 2011 will deal with security and privacy protection online, development of new economic models on the Internet, operation of online media, blogs and social media, among others. Discussion of the New gTLD program will make up one of central themes of the conference. This is particularly timely an exercise on the eve of the ICANN meeting in Singapore, where this program may be finally approved. Thus, EuroDIG once again proves its status of a pan-European platform for interaction and development of collective decisions on the Internet’s advancement.
