Telefónica Public Policy & Telefónica España Regulatory teams
It was the last year when Korea started formally organizing a Business meeting just before the G20 Summit in Seoul, with Companies representatives of the most important countries of the world. The central idea is that G20 members have the opportunity of exchanging experiences and ideas with the most relevant CEOS, representing the most important companies worldwide.
The French presidency maintained this idea, so that on the 2-3 November, the French Riviera was receiving the most relevant business CEOs in a summit, previously to the G20 Summit in Cannes, gathering the most powerful economies from developed and developing countries.
This year, the B20 (the Business Summit) gathered more than 120 CEOs from the most relevant companies worldwide and also the business confederations of the G20 countries. Telefónica was one of the companies invited to contribute to this forum. The B20 debated 12 relevant issues, the so-called B20 priorities such as ICT & Innovation, Global Governance, Financial Regulation, amongst others, presenting a set of recommendations to the G20 Heads of States.
Concerning the ICT & Innovation topic, the main recommendations were focussed on the relevance of innovation for growth, employment and economic recovery worldwide.
The business community recommended to:
– Encourage authorities to create stable and predictable regulatory frameworks to promote competition and investments from the private sector, complemented when appropriate by public initiatives in sectors such as fixed and mobile broadband, ultra-broadband, content, applications and services.
– Promote Internet usage for all in a sustainable manner to create economically and socially valuable ubiquitous new products and services through different means described in the report
– Promote harmonization in the field of privacy protection to guarantee a level playing field among players and to create the needed trust.
– Ensure Internet governance arrangements are multistakeholder by providing for the open, transparent and adequate participation of stakeholders and fostering the dialogue driven by industries, while avoiding creating a new inefficient bureaucracy, with a strong accent on cyber criminality and IPRs regulation.
Our CEO, César Alierta, took part in the ICT Working Group, and co-presided the one devoted to Global Governance issues. He defended the very important role that ICT has in order to ensure a needed Global Governance in which cooperation and transparency are key. It is really important for Telefónica to have this kind of opportunities in which our views on our sector and the global economy are exposed.
Next year, it will be Mexico’s turn. It is fortunate the fact that G20 and B20 take place in one of the most important countries of one of the most important countries in the world. This is also the case for Telefónica, as our Latin American involvement is essential to our company.
You can find the final report of the B20 Summit here.
Alfredo Timermans, Director of Telecommunications Policy, International Office, Telefónica S.A.
